


Descent of Halcyon

by itwastheband



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Amanda Grayson Lives, BAMF Nyota Uhura, Blood and Gore, Christopher Pike Lives, James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy Friendship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Oblivious James T. Kirk, Pre-Slash, Protective Spock (Star Trek), Spock & Nyota Uhura Friendship, Spock Loves James T. Kirk, Vulcan is Not Destroyed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24727237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itwastheband/pseuds/itwastheband
Summary: Bad guy defeated, happy ending imminent, right? Wrong.After the successful defeat of Nero, life is anything but back to normal for Jim Kirk. He’s lived his whole life knowing he was born different, that he can hear and see andfeelthings others can’t - but until now that’s been nothing more than a minor headache that he could ignore.It’s only now after the dust settles that he finds his senses are growing worse with each day that passes. This wouldn’t be so bad if all the other looming threats on the horizon would just leave him alone, but apparently that’s just too much to ask of the universe.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 47
Kudos: 285
Collections: T’hy’la Bang 2020





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the T'hy'la Bang 2020
> 
> WHEW! I am so glad this fic is finally done! This was a ridiculously labor intensive fic to write, so I'm hoping at least someone enjoys this fic.
> 
> I'd like to thank [Marlin](http://marlinspirkhall.tumblr.com/) for being super freaking awesome and helping me beta read not once, not twice but three times and encouraging me to keep going with the fic even when I wanted to set it on fire. I still want to set it on fire, but it's too late for that now. LOL. Marlin is also awesome because even after all that they still found the time to [create fanart](https://66.media.tumblr.com/ba3b581f6255b5866f6a7b695b2c6ad0/e3b5cdb7d4a415bb-76/s1280x1920/0ff3c04edd0861cea64e1e1ac616ab84902bfa03.png) for it as well. <3
> 
> Finally, I also want to thank my ridiculously awesome artist [punkspockispunkrock](http://punkspockispunkrock.tumblr.com/) from tumblr for creating [all the gorgeous artwork!](https://punkspockispunkrock.tumblr.com/post/621036245871689728/my-piece-for-the-thyla-big-bang-i-collaborated)

_“Are you sure about this, Jim?”_

_Pike was looking at him with an expression that spoke louder than the Captain himself ever had in the four years Jim had known him. It was a look that radiated disappointment, sadness and even a bit of resignation - as if Pike had known all along he should have seen this coming. Jim had spent all his time at the Academy doing everything he could to avoid ever seeing that look and now that it was there, he could see why._

_He hated it more than anything else._

_Yet as bad as it was, it had nothing on the absolute force of righteous fury that was Hurricane Bones._

_“Are you out of your damned mind, Captain?!” Bones snapped fiercely before Jim could take a moment to think of what to say, or how to apologize. Pike was the only one who believed in him during his early days in the Academy, the only one who went to bat for him when things got tough and Jim wondered what he was doing, wasting his time in Star Fleet. He was the tone who helped him keep going._

_Now look where that got him._

_“There’s no way you can approve this request!”_

_“Watch your tone, doctor,” Pike warned wearily._

_Bones barreled on, unheedingly. “Jim needs to stay on the ship so I can keep running tests! I can’t do anything if he leaves!”_

_“I don’t have much say over this-“_

_“Well, I do! As CMO of this ship I have the authority to remand him to the infirmary!”_

_Pike kept his eyes focused squarely on Jim throughout Bones’ tirade, watching him, maybe even waiting for Jim to cave and tell him what was really going on. Instead, Jim decided to take a page out of Spock’s book and carefully studied the wall behind the captain as if it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen._

_He didn’t_ ** _want_** _to go, but the alternative was much, much worse._

_“Doctor McCoy!” Pike finally snapped, startling Bones into silence. “Do you have any_ **_medical_ ** _reason to suspect that Mr. Kirk’s judgment has been impaired and that he is now in need of a medical proxy?”_

_“I-“ Jim could hear the loud_ **_clack_ ** _of Bones’ teeth clicking together in the sudden silence of the room as he snapped his mouth shut abruptly._

_Pike took his silence as a ‘no’ and continued._

_“Then given that Mr. Kirk’s had declined to renew his contract with Star Fleet he is from this day on now considered a civilian. You have no say here. Unless you can give me a compelling reason to hold him against his will, you have no choice but to let him go.”_

_Nothing. The room had become deathly silent as if all breathing had stopped._

* * *

Jim was never much of a fan of silence. He didn’t mean the kind of silence you’d find while on a hiking trip through the woods or while rock climbing some jagged tundra far away from civilization. That silence at least had birds and insects and the implication of life all around him. There was never any doubt there.

No, what he _hated_ more than anything was the silence that always came just before a storm hit, when everything went quiet in fearful anticipation. Or the silence that came in the direct aftermath once the storm had passed and everything was left dead or destroyed.

Yet the old house in Iowa was always exactly like that all the way as far back as he could remember. Even when he had still been living there as a child, his earliest memory was of some fight Sam and Frank had gotten into that had resulted in tense stillness and Jim tiptoeing around in fear of attracting any attention. 

Even on the good days, when Frank and Sam hadn’t been fighting and maybe Mom was on one of her rare shore leaves where she could physically stand being in the house, even _then_ Jim always had to strain to listen for any signs of life besides himself. 

He always had to struggle to hear anything, anyone, besides the low groan of the house as it settled, the howl of the wind as it whipped around the corners or the insistent _tap, tap, tappings_ of the barely restrained window shutters.

Most times, though, he wouldn’t hear anything. It was like the world had disappeared. It’d just be him in that dying house with the wind violently celebrating its slow demise, the shutters hammering their way in and all the while, trapped deep inside that hollow carcass was Jim.

Just Jim. His heart was the only beat.

Like now.

Nearly ten years had passed since the last time Jim had stepped foot in this old place. Frank was gone now, and his mom would probably never come back, just like Sam would probably never either. Yet it still felt like nothing had changed at all since the last time he was there. He kept expecting to turn around to find Sam brooding or see Frank turn the corner and bark at him to ‘ _get lost!_ ’

It was just as quiet.

Only now the quiet felt worse, more oppressive. It weighed on him, pressing down on his shoulders, wrapping its long fingers around his chest and squeezing until Jim could barely get a breath in. 

The silence was maddening, but not nearly as maddening as listening to randomly chosen holos play too loud in that empty house. He couldn’t win, loud or quiet - it was all too much.

He didn’t know what to do. 

In the past, when the house started to get to him he’d go find Sam and Sam would talk to him until the feeling of being trapped went away. It had never crossed his mind that Sam felt the same way until one day he was gone, too.

Jim fought to suck in a lungful of air, panic beginning to set in.

He looked around the room in an attempt to ground himself. He was in the kitchen, a half-made sandwich on the counter in front of him. The two slices of bread were separated, the filings laid to the side with a knife haphazardly half off the edge of the counter top. All it would take to send it toppling over the edge would be one small nudge. Tossed to the side was a padd with a single peculiar sentence glowing up from the screen - _Tell the truth._

Tell the truth about what?

Jim struggled to remember, but perhaps worse of all, Jim realized, was that he couldn’t remember how he got there. How he got to that room or when he might have gone to the replicator to make the ingredients for his meal.

Any of it. 

It was like a huge chunk of time was completely erased from his mind. 

That painful feeling in his chest was worsening. It felt like he had been ripped open, stuffed to the brim with _garbage_ then was snapped shut again. It left him with the overwhelming feeling of not being able to breathe, his skin prickling with the cold.

_Calm down_ , he thought desperately. _It’s going to be okay_.

Yet even as he thought that he knew it was a lie. It wasn’t going to be ‘okay’—it was getting worse. Usually he could remember the lead up to one of his episodes, but this one was particularly bad. 

His last memory was of sitting on the porch enjoying the Iowa breeze, the smell of bread being baked on a hot day and then- nothing. He was here. Maybe the smell had made him hungry and he had come back inside and then-? And then he stopped and stared at the wall, his chest seized even tighter with shock as he looked at the chronometer, for _three hours_.

He had been staring at the wall for _three hours_.

Small tremors wracked his body, the air felt wrong against his skin. This couldn’t be the rest of his life, Jim thought desperately. There had to be a way out of it. There had to be a solution.

_Oh_ , but there was. Except Jim had systematically burned all those bridges out of pride and maybe even fear.

The only way back now was to swim.

Without warning a deafening, piercing tone of his communicator cut through the air with an unholy screech. Jim covered his ears and fell onto the edge of the counter, with a startled cry - one that quickly turned into a shout of pain as the sound repeated over and over. It was then Jim realized something else was wrong when he reached up to cover his ears and felt something wet against his face. Eyes flying open with a cry he looked at his hand in shock to see it covered in blood.

* * *

_“What’s happening?!”_

_“I don’t know, just hold him down!”_

_“Don’t just stand there, do something-!”_

_“Doctor!”_

* * *

It took only a few moments for the noise to finally stop, but to Jim it felt like an eternity and by the time the noise cut out he felt shaken and sick. The wound thankfully wasn’t deep, but the fear of just what an infection would do to him right then if he decided to slap a few bandages on it like he usually did drove him to anxiously wait even longer than usual in hopes he hadn’t done anything to screw himself over. 

By the time he finally accepted that, yes, the bleeding had stopped and it was safe to clean and wrap his hand a half hour had already passed. He surveyed the bloody mess he had left behind with a shuddering sigh. Already he could tell it was going to be next to a nightmare to clean up. 

And he was right. It took another fifteen minutes to awkwardly move around the house in an attempt to clean up, if only because he’d occasionally lose himself in the frankly disturbing sensation of the skin of his palm pulling apart from itself with any bit of movement of his hand. It was like his palm was peeling and then little painful bits of electricity were being sent up every other nerve ending in his arm until his palm unpeeled itself again. It sent chills up his back.

It was only after he nearly stepped on the damn knife in his distraction when he finally snapped back to reality.

_Get it together_ , _Jim_ , he thought angrily as he tossed the knife into the sink with more force than was strictly necessary. He’d deal with cleaning the damn thing later, first he had to deal with the _crime scene_ he had left behind in his haste to put pressure on his hand. Just looking at the hurried trail of blood Jim had left behind made him think of all those old horror vids where the protagonists would see bloodied footprints that would lead whoever followed them to their death.

* * *

_The Enterprise had reached Archimedes Station the day before Easter. Coincidentally, it was also the day Bones had thrown up his hands and been forced to release Jim from the infirmary after a seventh day in a row of no explanation of what was happening and a complete disappearance of all previous symptoms._

_Jim had spent the day holed up in his quarters, reprogramming his replicator to bypass the frankly terrible dietary restrictions Bones had added to Jim’s food card when a message pinged on his padd._

_The subject line_ ** _ETAT PRIORITE - Continued Service Agreement_** _glowed up at him from the newly awakened screen._

_It was then he got the idea._

_It wasn’t one he had thought of before, but once planted in his head Jim just couldn’t shake it. The timing of the message made sense; no more than a month ago he had overheard one of the Navigation crew excitedly talking to another crewmember in the mess hall about how they were returning to Earth so they could receive orders for a brand spankin’ new five year mission in Deep Space._

_It would be a completely unprecedented mission that had never been undertaken before and Brass wanted to make sure everyone on board was there willingly and, if not, were given ample opportunity to transfer. In Jim’s case, his contract was nearing its end._

_When Pike had found him in that seedy, back alley bar in Iowa and convinced (or rather, dared) Jim to do better than his father, Jim had expected to spend maybe a year in service – not including his time at the Academy – before he went absolutely crazy and decided a starship wasn’t worth it. It also happened to be the shortest length of time a recruit could agree to when filling out the recruitment documents._

_He figured he would ace the academy, shove Pike’s face in it when he graduated early and then when his time was up he would disappear like he was never there. He just hadn’t expected to have enjoyed Academy so much, to enjoy the challenges his instructors gave him on a daily basis which eventually evolved into the challenges he faced as a lieutenant on the Enterprise._

_He had joined Star Fleet angry and wanting to make a point, but he couldn’t imagine leaving now._

_Jim stared dejectedly down at the screen, the padd held loosely in his hands._

* * *

It didn’t take long for the communicator to go off again, but this time Jim was ready and he had _had enough._

Before it could so much as screech, he lunged across the room to the wall the device was on, dug his fingers into the crevices between it and the drywall and with one pull, completely _ripped it off its foundation_ and silenced it for good.

_“Shut up, shut up!”_

Once removed, he threw it behind him and went after the struts it had been attached to. His fingers scrambled to find another purchase he could dig into, but these were more firmly attached to the wall and were harder to budge. Eventually, though, he managed to dig his fingers in and the flimsy wall fixture gave a satisfying groan before finally bending outwards.

That sign of weakness was like blood in the water for a shark. Jim threw himself into the endeavor even more. He clawed his way into a crevice, his fingers eventually breaking through the wall behind it. He could feel the grit wedged underneath his nails and smell the musty air released from the small hole he had created.

He wanted to rip this whole damn place apart, one wall at a time.

Suddenly, arms wrapped around him, grabbed his wrists firmly and pulled him back with one swift motion. When he was no longer within reach of the wall, the person behind him folded both their arms to Jim’s chest and hefted him effortlessly into the air. That was enough to shock Jim from his spell and he didn’t try to resist being removed from the room entirely.

He was shaking again, whole body tremors.

“Spock?” Jim’s voice was barely a croak. “What are you doing here?”

Spock hadn’t let go of him yet. Maybe he was worried that Jim would try to have another go at the wall in a fit of rage. Regardless of his reasoning, it… it felt nice. He felt a calm fall over him. It was something he hadn’t felt in… ages. Jim closed his eyes and just let himself listen to Spock speak.

“Doctor McCoy is unable to be here to perform his usual duties and requested I do so in his place,” Spock replied, careful to keep his voice soft. Jim just rolled his head closer to the sound. It was the first thing in this place that was soothing to listen to.

He had really missed Spock.

“May I ask what you were doing?”

“I…”

Realization set in that Jim had spent the last who knows how long tearing into the wall because the communicator had made him angry. That he had continued tearing even after the communicator was long gone like some sort of mindless animal and, without further ado, threw up.

* * *

_Bones slammed the tricorder on the bench beside Jim. He could hear the doctor’s low, angry muttering to himself about foolhardy idiots who did stupid things and got into stupid trouble… Despite his headache, Jim couldn’t help but be at least a little impressed by how many ways Bones could work the word “stupid” into his tirade and still manage to make it work. But then, Bones had been friends with Jim for so long at that point that there was a good chance it was just part of his daily routine._

_It probably even looked something like:_

  1. _Wake up_
  2. _Call Jim an idiot_
  3. _Brush teeth_
  4. _Call Jim an idiot_
  5. _Get breakfast_



_And so on._

_Jim laughed at the thought, which turned out to be a grave mistake because it caught Bones’ attention and caused him to immediately zero in on him with a withering glare._

_“What the hell are you thinking?” Bones snapped before Jim could say anything. “You know your best chance at discovering…” he waved a hand vaguely towards the Observation Deck window. “Whatever the hell is happening and come up with a solution is to stay here, not leave Star Fleet!”_

_“Bones…”_

_“Don’t ‘Bones’ me!”_

_Jim held up his hands in tired defeat and sat back._

_“If you stay aboard the Enterprise, I can run tests. I can ask the ambassadors from the planet questions. I can take samples! I can’t do that if you’re half a galaxy away! Not in real time and not fast enough to get anything done!”_

_Jim sighed. He should have known Bones wouldn’t have given up so easily._

_If he didn’t know that the doctor would have never forgiven him for it, Jim would probably have snuck away without ever saying goodbye. There one day, gone the next._

_He’d have gone to Pike, announced his decision not to renew his contract with Star Fleet along with his apologies for being such a colossal disappointment and then… left. The thought had been tempting as he filled out the forms required for his official resignation from the Fleet. The only thing that had stopped him was the knowledge that the second Bones found out, he would have probably found a way to hunt him down just to give him unholy hell for it._

_“What is going on, Jim?” Bones’ voice had softened, he was worried. “This isn’t like you. It’s like you’ve given up.”_

_Never before had Jim so desperately wanted to just spill everything and tell McCoy everything. ‘Start to finish’ everything, not a bunch of redacted bullshit, but when he opened his mouth the words wouldn’t come out. They had been buried for so long that even they couldn’t remember what they sounded like. So instead, he said,_

_“You’ve been running tests for months now, Bones. Months. You haven’t found anything.” Bones looked like he wanted to say something, but it was Jim’s turn to barrel on. “The Enterprise can’t stay in orbit here forever and I can’t be in the infirmary for the next three years.”_

_“You won’t be!”_

_“You don’t know that!”_

_Bones had a sour look on his face that he usually got when he knew he was beat, but then it quickly changed to something more considering that put Jim on edge._

_“Have you told Spock yet?”_

_Underhanded son of a bitch, Jim thought darkly. Bones’ eyes lit up, sensing weakness._

_“You haven’t, have you?”_

* * *

“Jim?”

Jim blinked back to himself to find Spock kneeling in front of him. At some point in time, Spock had moved Jim to a chair and was now watching him with visible concern in his eyes. It was a sight Jim hadn’t ever expected to see on Spock, but it still made Jim feel like a heel for putting it there.

“What are you doing here, Spock?”

“Doctor McCoy-” Spock started again.

“No,” Jim interrupted. He pushed himself up in his chair to fix Spock with a look. “Why are you here? Didn’t the Enterprise leave for Deep Space already?”

He wasn’t playing around here. Spock should have been out there on the Enterprise, not here with him. What was he doing? Spock’s face suddenly blanked in a way that Jim now associated with ‘Spock is hiding something’, which in easy, human terms meant _guilt_.

Jim glared at him.

“Spock, what did you do?”


	2. Chapter 2

To say that their return to Earth after Nero’s sound defeat was a jarring experience would have been the understatement of the millenia. 

They had left Earth not knowing in the slightest what would happen when they answered the alleged distress call from Vulcan and now, though they returned victorious, the weight of what it cost them to win hung heavy on all of them. 

It reminded Jim of when he was 14. Back when he was still tired and too skinny and had spent months running from anyone who’d bother looking at him twice. His only goal then was to make it home, to come back to his family where he’d be safe. He’d spent those months thinking of little else besides fondly remembering his Aunt Linda telling him bedtime stories with the cousins, even if he had been too old for them already. Or how Uncle Izka’el would sing when he was working in his office and how his melodic voice would reverberate through the rooms even after he’d shut the door.

It never occurred to Jim then that anything would be different when he finally got back to their small, provincial apartment in the Sector 5 region of Tarsus IV. Yet when he did finally make it back he was only greeted with silence.

The apartment had been abandoned.

There was no way to know for sure what had happened to them, but Jim knew that Kodos’ men must have come and taken everyone away. On that day, Jim had stood in that too quiet apartment desperately searching for even one heartbeat, but deep down he knew no one was left.

It was painful to hear nothing when before there was so much  _ life _ .

Star Fleet Academy was like that now.

Every day for three years Jim would wake up to the sounds of students bustling through the halls, laughing, talking, yelling - generally being as loud and obnoxious as possible. At first it had been so irritating that Jim had to get ear plugs for those rare mornings when he got to sleep in because otherwise he was woken at 0600 on the dot, but over time he eventually had gotten used to it. It had become a sort of background noise that he’d come to associate with the campus itself.

Except now, the day after Nero’s attacks on both Earth and Vulcan, Star Fleet Academy was silent. It was a gut wrenching reminder that even though they had succeeded in saving both planets from annihilation, they had still lost a sobering number of people in the desperate struggle that had ensued.

The air was thick with tension from the moment their shuttles had touched down after disembarking the Enterprise.

In lieu of a crowd milling around the Academy’s shuttle bay, doing whatever it was crowds did, there was now a large sea of red security uniforms waiting for them. The minute the doors of the shuttle opened, a squad of heavily armed security was there to greet them and usher them from checkpoint to checkpoint in groups where they were all repeatedly searched and questioned before continuing on.

No one spoke much during this except for a woman, presumably the highest ranking security officer in the squad, who occasionally gave them orders on where to go and what not to do.

They finally stopped when they reached the last checkpoint, what Jim recognized as the lobby of the debriefing rooms – a bunch of sterile, spartanly designed rooms that lacked creativity and color, and were sparsely populated with a few chairs and a table. He had to come here often enough during his Survival rotations to give his XO a rundown on what happened during his training missions that he’d recognize this place in his sleep.

At least he’d recognize the smell of it if nothing else.

The lobby had the misfortune of sharing the same color palate as the debriefing rooms themselves, but at least someone had the good sense to give this room way more chairs and try to decorate it a little more.

Upon reaching the lobby, their security detail fell back to the entrance of the room and held their positions there. Jim couldn’t tell whether they were guarding them or watching them, either way he didn’t like where Star Fleet’s head was at.

Jim’s grandma, a retired Vice Admiral who had spent her life serving Star Fleet, had told him once what the organization used to be like before Nero had attacked them the first time, how it had been a peaceful organization focused on scientific exploration. Yet after that fateful day twenty four years ago Star Fleet had slowly begun to change and fear of another attack had given war-mongering Admirals the freedom to sacrifice their ideals for the illusion of security.

And now that second attack had come. Nero might have failed in his mission to destroy Humans and Vulcans alike, but he had succeeded in destroying a little more of the foundation of their peace. Jim wasn’t sure he wanted to see how much more militaristic Star Fleet would become in response to this.

Everyone in his group naturally gravitated away from each other as they waited to be called one by one into a different room and still, no one spoke.

“ _ Cadet Kirk _ .”

“Yes,” Jim replied, standing up to find…

… no one standing there. Jim frowned and scanned the room in confusion. Nothing. The only other people in the room were the others who had disembarked with him and were also waiting to be debriefed along with their security detail - a few of which were now eying Jim warily. No one had called him.

Jim flushed and sat back down upon realizing what must have happened. Stuff like this used to happen to him all the time as a kid, hearing things that weren’t there or smelling things no one else could, but had gradually stopped when he had gotten older. He had thought they’d been gone for good, yet this was the second time in a week that he’d found himself having issues again.

He supposed the surprisingly strong smell of disinfectant and artificial house plants in the room should have tipped him off.

He couldn’t hear whoever was talking anymore, but he’d bet he was going to be one of the next in line to be called. 

One of the doors slid open and a smartly dressed woman with a padd cradled in the crook of her elbow exited. She glanced down at the padd then looked up and called out,

“Cadet Kirk?”

_ Called it _ , he thought wryly.

“Here,” Jim replied, standing up again. The woman, a lieutenant commander, eyed him coolly then stepped to the side to let him into the room.

“Please have a seat,” the lieutenant commander instructed him, gesturing to one of the only two chairs in the room as he entered. “Someone will be with you shortly.”

* * *

‘Shortly’, as it turned out, was a lot longer than Jim remembered it being. 

There were no clocks in the room to judge how long he’d been sitting there, of course, but if he had to guess he’d been there for at least an hour before a surprisingly intense man with Lieutenant Commander’s pips on his shoulders stormed into the room like a man on a mission. This lieutenant commander was a complete opposite in every way from the one who had shown him into the room. This one had his hair pulled back into a tight bun that Jim was 99.999% sure was responsible for the almost permanent scowl on his pale face and his brackish personality. 

Without so much as a ‘hello’, the man slammed his padd on the table’s surface and proceeded to spend the next who knows how long pacing around the debriefing room grilling him with questions that dissected every last one of the decisions he had ever made starting from the day he was born all the way up to when he last took a breath.

He wasn’t surprised by this. He had, after all, been put on academic probation since his disciplinary hearing had been suspended without reaching a verdict. So he was sure it came as a surprise to everyone to realize that he had been first and foremost in leading the charge to stop Nero and rescue Pike alongside Spock and Number One.

What did surprise him was how doggedly the Lieutenant Commander would fixate on certain points of his mission report and demand he repeat back to him the series of events in greater detail. Points like how Jim manage to find himself working alongside two high ranking officials like Spock and Number One. 

“Captain Pike ordered me to work with them after I warned him of Nero’s attacks,” was always Jim’s response. Yet the Lieutenant Commander wanted to know how, why, when, where - everything. 

Then when Jim managed to satisfy those questions, the other man would suddenly want to know what Jim did after he was marooned on Delta Vega after Number One was incapacitated after Pike had been captured and Spock took over. How did he survive? Who did he meet? Where did he go? How did he escape?

It was an endless stream of questions and as time went on something began to niggle in the back of his mind that made him suspect the Lieutenant Commander wasn’t asking for the sake of the mission report. He was asking too many pointed questions about things that were important, yes, but weren’t relevant to the overall mission. 

He didn’t care how Jim had met another version of Spock from the future, or how they had saved Vulcan or how they had ultimately brought down Nero before he could go after Earth in one last kamikaze mission - he just wanted to know about  _ Jim _ .

An odd chill went down Jim’s spine as he pieced it all together. The suits in charge were scared.

Nero had been too good at taking them out to be working alone. He had known how to fake the emergency distress call from Vulcan to lure them there, where to lie in wait so he could destroy the first wave of ships that exited warp to cripple their fleet and to capture Captain Pike specifically when everyone had been distracted by the boarding parties during the fight over Vulcan.

It was too well coordinated for a half-crazed Romulan miner to pull off, twenty years of preparation or not.

Jim liked to play the smart-ass dumb-ass routine to get under people’s skin, but he wasn’t completely blind to not to see the writing on the walls. They suspected that someone had helped Nero, someone on the  _ inside. _

And who made a better suspect than James T. Kirk himself, the genius-level repeat offender who just so happened to be in the right place at the right time despite all odds. Top that with a recent suspension and a rap sheet that was a mile long with accusations of cheating, tampering with Federal equipment and now illegally boarding a ship, assault and battery of a superior officer and possible mutiny. How convenient.

He realized quite suddenly that when he stopped to take a tally of all the karma he’d racked up and all the laws he’d broken compared to all the good he’d done, the scale used to weigh his karma would probably break in favor of tying Jim up and chucking him out an airlock ASAP before he could do anything else. If he was  _ lucky _ . 

If they found some way of sticking him with charges of  _ treason _ … Well, forget being tossed out of an airlock. They’d send him to the nearest penal colony for “Rehabilitation.” He’d be lucky if he ever had a rational thought again.

If Jim had any inkling of an idea of the amount of trouble he’d find himself in after cracking the code for the Kobayashi Maru he would have dropped the idea like a hot potato the second he got it into his head. He had figured he’d get a pat on the back or a commendation for his forward thinking, not accusations of  _ treason _ .

“It says here,” the Lieutenant Commander was saying. “In Lieutenant Spock’s report that the two of you split up after infiltrating Nero’s ship.”

“That’s correct,” Jim replied impatiently for the millionth time. He fought the urge to rub his sweaty palms on his pant legs. He knew what the lieutenant commander was doing - interrogating him for must have been hours now without break, turning the temperature of the room down, making the lights too bright…

They had taught him these tactics in Survival Training when they discussed what to do when captured by an enemy.

The Lieutenant Commander was trying to wear him down to the point of breaking in hopes he’d confess something out of exhaustion or just plain fear. It was for that reason Jim couldn’t show him how scared he really was. If he gave them any chink in the armor they’d wedge themselves in and pry him open.

The question was, just how sanctioned was this? They wouldn’t send a lowly Lieutenant Commander to do something as important as this, so either an Admiral was watching or this guy was bending more than a few regulations. 

Right now his only hope was to keep it together until he could prove his innocence or get the law on his side without giving anyone any reason to believe that more severe tactics needed to be employed. As much as he wanted to believe Star Fleet was above torture, fear made people resort to drastic measures and near annihilation was damn terrifying.

“You never gave me your name, sir,” Jim asked suddenly, thinking fast. He needed to shift gears immediately and change the balance of power. The only problem was the light was really beginning to hurt his eyes. Inwardly, Jim cursed at how his childhood problem had decided now of all times to rear its ugly head. 

_ It’s a gift _ , his grandma had said. Yeah, well, it wasn’t much of a gift when it only made him want to rip his eyes from his skull. 

The Lieutenant Commander glared fiercely.

“I’m asking the questions here, cadet!” he snapped, slamming his hands on the tabletop with a surprisingly loud  **_bang!_ ** that made Jim jump slightly in surprise. The sound was startlingly loud in the near empty room. Maybe that was the point - make the room as cold and inhospitable as possible to avoid anyone getting comfortable.

Recovering quickly, Jim shifted in his seat. 

“When you separated from Mr. Spock,” the Lieutenant Commander continued. “You claim that you ran into the perpetrator, Nero, himself. Is this correct?”

“You know, it just seems like I’m at a disadvantage here,” Jim continued with forced laziness. “What am I supposed to tell the legal defense council when they ask who’s been interrogating me without informing me of my rights?”

The other man slammed his hands on the table again, but Jim was expecting it this time and didn’t react. The Lieutenant Commander then leaned forward into Jim’s face with a threatening expression. Jim held his ground and refused to move back, instead calmly staring the other man in the eye. Two could play at that intimidation game.

“Are you refusing to answer my questions, cadet?”

“On the contrary, sir, I’ve already answered them.” Multiple times. “Why aren’t you answering mine?”

“Bullshit,” the lieutenant commander hissed sharply, spitting in Jim’s face in the process. “You’re withholding information and I don’t need to tell you  _ shit _ until you start cooperating.”

The other man bared his teeth at Jim.

“You know what I think? I think you met up with that Romulan bastard. I think you coordinated these attacks together. Nero had the firepower, you have the skills to hack past planetary defenses and Montgomery had the tools you could steal from Delta Vega.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Jim replied carefully. “I’m flattered but that’s not possible. Vulcan has Mark IV planetary defense grids just like Earth does. You don’t just hack those.”

“Then the two of you colluded with him to get Captain Pike alone so he could torture him for the subspace frequencies to disable those protections.”

“Why would I do that?” Jim retorted sharply. “What could I possibly get from helping him?”

“You want the world to know how much better you are, that’s why you let yourself get sloppy with the Kobayashi Maru. I think you can’t help yourself. To you, it doesn’t matter if you get caught or not, one way or another you’ll get recognized.”

“Maybe you haven’t heard, but Nero was the one responsible for ripping my family apart. I fail to see how helping him makes me ‘look better.’ And I think lieutenant Spock would take offense at your dismissal of his deductive reasoning.”

“How does it feel knowing you helped the man who murdered your father? What do you think your father would say if he was here right now?”

_ Joke’s on you _ , Jim thought. It was a hard struggle not to roll his eyes. He had spent his entire life listening to people ask him some variation of that exact same question, after a while it lost potency and was just plain annoying.

“I wish I could tell you, but my crystal ball’s in the shop.” Then almost as if in afterthought he added, “ _ sir _ .”

The other man slammed his fist on the table for a third time, but just like before he didn’t react.

Before the Lieutenant Commander could say anything further, though, the door behind him slid open and a scrawny man with a tuft of wild brown hair tentatively made his way inside.

“I’m busy here!”

The newcomer flinched. “I’m sorry, sir, but-” He dropped his voice to a volume he probably expected Jim wouldn’t be able to hear and leaned close to the other man’s ear. “- _ there’s a lieutenant Spock outside who insists on speaking with you.” _

The Lieutenant Commander pulled back a fraction to glare at him. _ “Tell him. I’m busy.” _

__

Surprisingly, the newcomer didn’t budge. Impressive. Maybe there was a bit more steel in his spine than it first seemed.

“ _ He says it’s urgent, sir. _ ”

“ _ I don’t care! _ ”

“ _ Sir, he’s threatening sanctions. _ ”

The chair screeched as his interrogator shoved it back angrily and looked menacingly at Jim.

“This isn’t over, Kirk.”

Jim couldn’t help himself, he threw all caution to the wind and gave the other man a lazy salute. It might have been a really stupid move right then since he  _ did _ still need to get on his good side, but he was tired and at this point it felt like the Lieutenant Commander didn’t  _ have  _ a good side. It was as if the Lieutenant Commander  _ wanted _ Jim to be guilty so he could wipe his hands of the problem altogether. 

Besides, Jim felt the look on his face would be a nice memory to keep with him if they ever decided to ship him off to a penal colony. The other man’s glare hardened and he stormed out of the room with the newcomer in tow.

_ “What is the meaning of this?!”  _ Jim could hear the lieutenant commander’s distant voice snap as the door slid closed. 

_ “Greetings, Lieutenant Commander Acevedo _ .”

Jim knew that voice, he would recognize it anywhere. There was a buzz of excitement just beneath his skin. It felt like he had swallowed a swarm of butterflies and was holding them in his chest. Already it made his head hurt less with joy at the possible jailbreak. 

_ “What the hell do you want?! You are interrupting a formal inquiry!” _

Jim’s breath stuttered in his chest. He had been right, he had been trying to trip him up during the entire supposed debriefing in hopes that Jim would trap himself. 

_ “A formal inquiry during which you have misled the defendant and consequently denied him the right to counsel. _ ”

“ _ Who do you think you are! How dare you speak to me like that, show some respect!” _

_ “My apologies _ ,” Spock replied, not sounding the least bit apologetic.  _ “I was unaware that your rank allowed you to violate section 815(b) of Title 10 of the Articles of Federation that dictate that all Star Fleet personnel have an absolute right to consult with a detailed military defense counsel prior to trial by court-martial and the right to be represented at said court-martial by the aforementioned detailed military defense counsel.  _

“ _ This is not a court-martial, _ ” Acevedo sneered harshly. “ _ It’s a post-mission debrief. I shouldn’t need to remind  _ **_you_ ** _ that it’s not necessary to provide legal counsel for  _ **_that_ ** _.” _

“ _ That is not entirely correct, _ ” Spock replied, undeterred. “ _ The debrief ended when you failed to adhere to Star Fleet’s Guidelines for the Debriefing Process and, although I should not need to remind you, these guidelines dictate that any debriefs that should exceed a duration of an hour require the oversight of a review committee. Do you require the definition of an hour?” _

__

_ “…I don’t need a definition.” _ It sounded as if Acevedo was forcing the words through his teeth.

_ “Then you will agree you have exceeded the time restrictions set forth by the Federation without requesting the gathering of a formal committee. Furthermore, upon review of these debrief transcripts, it seems that you have levied very serious charges against Cadet Kirk for treason without any grounds. Do you deny this?” _

Silence.

Utter silence.

Jim could have gone out there and kissed Spock right at that moment. He really could have, though he definitely wouldn’t because Spock would most likely eviscerate him without hesitation and wow, wouldn’t that’d be counterproductive, but  _ God _ , Jim really loved that pedantic asshole to bits right now.

He couldn’t hear Spock and Acevedo talking anymore, he couldn’t tell if they had gone silent or if his head was finally deciding to give him a break. Except now the room’s cold was starting to get to him. It felt like someone had turned the temperature down even more, maybe even as a last minute bit of discomfort before Jim was set free. He wouldn’t put it past someone who’d willingly overlook Acevedo’s methods to do something like that as a last laugh.

Jim closed his eyes tiredly, a wave of exhaustion washing over him suddenly. Now more than ever he found himself thinking of resting his head on the table and slipping into a coma. 

_ No _ , he told himself without opening his eyes.  _ Stay awake a little longer.  _

“Mr. Kirk?”

Jim’s eyes flew open in surprise to find Spock standing beside him, brow furrowed in concern. The door of the debriefing room was left wide open, Acevedo nowhere to be seen. He must have fallen asleep despite himself because he had to blink the sleep from his eyes to look up at Spock. 

“Are you alright?” Spock asked.

“Yeah, sorry,” Jim replied. He shook his head then stood up. “I think I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”

Spock inclined his head. “Of that, I have no doubt.” He paused then added, “Lieutenant Commander Acevedo has concluded his debrief and you are free to go now.”

“How did you even know I was here?” Jim asked as they exited the room and began making their way down the hall. 

“I inquired about your whereabouts,” Spock replied simply. Jim opened his mouth, then stopped to think about Spock’s answer and closed his mouth again. 

He wasn’t wrong, Jim supposed.

“No, I meant, how did you know I was in trouble?”

Spock lifted a brow.

“I was approached by a pair of cadets who claimed to have overheard Lieutenant Commander Acevedo discussing your verdict in advance. When you did not emerge after some time, they became concerned that you were being ‘railroaded’ and requested I intervene.”

Jim got the feeling there was something else Spock wasn’t saying, but he decided not to push.

“I don’t understand why Acevedo went through all that effort to do all that to begin with.”

“Many Star Fleet individuals, including myself, believe that Nero must have had someone working from within the Federation itself. It is possible he was tasked with ferreting out whoever might have been involved and became overzealous when he felt the circumstances of your adventures were suspect.”

That was fair, Jim reasoned, and yet...

“Yeah, but I fully explained the circumstances of how I got back to the ship and I cited witnesses who could corroborate my story. Acevedo ignored everything I said and kept demanding I tell the truth. It’s like the only thing he wanted to hear from me was a confession.”

Spock looked pensive at the information. 

“Then it is entirely possible that Acevedo may not have had the purest of intentions when questioning you for information. He is already suspect for his unethical attempts to detain you and interrogate you further, it would not be irrational to then deduce that he chose to employ these methods because he knew of the illegitimacy of his claims.”

Jim stumbled at the thought. Spock was right. Jim had been too caught up in his exhaustion and panic to see what was going on - that there was no way this ‘formal inquiry’ could ever be officially recognized by any Admiral or Vice Admiral and wouldn’t stand up to an ounce of scrutiny. That must have been why Acevedo had backed off so quickly, once Spock had shown up he had proceeded to dump a metric ton of scrutiny, as only a Vulcan could. 

“So, what you’re saying is Acevedo was hoping I would have _ just so happened _ to confess during a ‘debriefing’ that I had colluded with the enemy and nearly brought about the destruction of two major Federation planets.”

As if his life wasn’t already complicated enough without allegations that he had conspired with a time-traveling intergalactic terrorist that just so happened to have killed his father while seeking vengeance for an event that might not even happen in this dimension. This was like something out of a poorly-written drama.

“That is entirely possible.” Spock nodded. “But if Acevedo had brought your confession to an admiral, any admiral, then they would have had no reason to look into the method it was ‘discovered.’ Not unless you tried to appeal, but accusations of treason are not as easy to refute and the odds of a successful appeal are 556 to 1.”

“But why? Is he just salivating over a possible promotion and decided it would be worth it to completely destroy my life?”

“Unfortunately, I do not have a way of confirming that information at this time,” Spock admitted, though he, too, looked troubled at the situation.

_ Jesus christ _ . Jim ran a hand through his hair worriedly as they came to a stop outside his quarters. Acevedo might have jumped the gun, but if he was really up to no good then he now had the chance to regroup and Jim couldn’t rely on him being so sloppy the next time around.

Jim sighed.

“You are weary,” Spock observed. “You require sleep.”

“Wait, Spock,” Jim replied before the Vulcan could take a step down the hall. “I wanted to thank you, for helping me back there. You didn’t have to do that.”

Spock raised a brow in a way that could only be described as smug.

“Consider it a partial repayment of debt.”

Wait, what? Jim blinked in confusion. “For what?”

He couldn’t think of anything he had done as a favor for Spock. Quite the opposite, actually. He had been a real thorn in Spock’s side since the minute they had met.

“You were instrumental in the prevention of the destruction of not only my home planet which allowed my people the opportunity to fight back, but also the potential destruction of Earth, the place of my mother’s birth. For that, I am in your debt.”

Uh, what. No.

Jim shook his head. “No, Spock, I did what anyone would do in that situation. You didn’t need me there for that.”

“Perhaps,” Spock conceded. “Yet without your intervention we would have most likely ignored the signs of Nero’s presence and been unable to stop the drill in time. The results of a Nero successfully breaking through Vulcan’s defenses and drilling into the planet’s core would have been… devastating.”

Spock’s voice softened as he finished. Jim shifted awkwardly. This wasn’t the time to have a long, heartfelt conversation, but Jim could still remember the look on Spock’s face as Jim twisted a metaphorical knife into his chest with taunts about his mother. Then the sound of that last deep inhale Spock had taken before he had snapped and lost all control. It had been an oddly haunting sound, like the final gust wind just before a storm broke.

This might just be the last time Jim would ever see Spock, given everything that had happened, Jim owed it to Spock to try and make things right. 

“How  _ is _ your mother?” Jim asked carefully. He could still remember the sound of her agonized screams after she had been beamed aboard the Enterprise. She hadn't been as lucky as they were to avoid the flying debris as they made it off the planet and she had collapsed on the transporter room floor with rebar jutting through her chest. The lights aboard the ship had flickered madly as they weathered attack after attack from Nero’s ship and for a wild moment it was almost like the brown outs were powered by her wails of misery.

Spock’s face blanked for a terrifying few seconds and Jim couldn’t help but think he had stepped in it real good this time before Spock replied with a simple,

“She is recovering.”

“That’s good,” Jim stated with forced cheer. Then thought better of it and repeated in a softer voice, “That’s good.”

A beat of awkward silence.

“Perhaps-” Spock started just as Jim said, “Look, Spock-” 

They both stopped and Jim laughed softly. It was a welcome change after the day he’d had. 

“You go first.”

“That is not necessary,” Spock refused. “Please continue what you were about to say.”

Jim sighed good-naturedly. This was like the Vulcan equivalent of  _ no,  _ **_you_ ** _ hang up _ . Given Spock’s stubbornness, they’d probably be there all night trying to get the other person to speak and then they’d forget whatever they had actually wanted to say.

Well, Jim would, anyway.

“I was going to say…” He paused awkwardly. It felt weird to say now. “Well.”

Get it over with, he told himself. Like ripping off a bandage. He took a deep breath.

“About what I said, earlier. On the bridge.” Spock’s face had gone frighteningly blank again.

“You made a logical decision during a crisis. There is nothing to apologize for,” Spock stated curtly.

Sure there wasn’t. Jim eyed him warily for a moment before deciding  _ what the hell _ and dived right in.

“Maybe you’re right, but I want to apologize anyway.” Spock frowned and said nothing, but at least that blank expression was gone. “Maybe what I did was logical for gaining control of the ship, but what I said still had negative consequences and I’m sorry for that. I said it because I knew it’d get me what I wanted, not because it was true. Hell, the only reason it even worked was  _ because  _ it wasn’t true.”

Spock tilted his head quizzically. “I do not understand.”

Jim sighed. “If you didn’t care about your mother, then it wouldn’t have mattered what I said, it wouldn’t have bothered you at all. The fact that it did shows that you’re a good person and a good son. In the end, that’s all that matters.”

Spock didn’t reply. For a moment, it didn’t even look like he was moving if Jim hadn’t been paying close enough attention. 

“I see.”

Spock’s voice was so quiet Jim had almost missed it.

“…Am I making things worse?” Jim asked anxiously. “Should I just shut up while I’m at it?”

“No,” Spock stated and maybe it was the after-hours lighting in the hall, but Spock’s face seemed to soften. Just a bit.

“Okay,” Jim sighed in relief. Just then he let out a long, jaw-breaking yawn.

“Perhaps you should rest.”

“Yeah.”

For a while, neither of them moved.

“Hey, Spock?”

“Yes, Mr. Kirk?” 

“As impressive as it was listening to you rip Acevedo a new one, you should probably watch your back now.”

At Spock’s apparent confusion, Jim continued, “ I appreciate the help, but you probably have a target painted on your back now.”

Spock’s expression didn’t change. Huh. Maybe Vulcan’s just didn’t get slang? Before he could translate, though, Spock asked,

“You could hear the conversation that transpired between us?”

Now it was Jim’s turn to be confused. “Yeah?” Then he grinned. “You were amazing by the way. I gotta say, you missed your calling as a lawyer, you could weaponize that kind of pedantry.”

Spock turned a light shade of green. “That is unlikely.”

Jim laughter was cut off by another jaw-cracking yawn. “Ow! Damnit!”

“I will leave you to your rest now.” 

“Alright, goodnight, Spock.”

And before Jim could say anything more, Spock walked away.


	3. Chapter 3

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Kirk,” Admiral T’vak intoned solemnly from where she sat. 

“Of course, Admiral T’vak. I’m honored to be here.” 

That morning Jim had been woken from a deep, unyielding sleep by the insistent sound of his communicator beeping from the table beside his bed where he had tossed the device just before falling into bed the night before. It had taken him a few tries to pry his eyes open, his body feeling as if he’d gone a few rounds with an angry Romulan or as if during the night someone had snuck in and attached heavy weights to his chest to weigh him down. 

After dozing for a long moment, Jim had blinked awake and found himself groggily staring at the ceiling. 

And the communicator was still ringing. 

Jim had snapped awake then and launched himself to the side of his bed to lunge towards his bedside table and grab the device in a rush. It was at that point he was greeted by a firmly worded, high priority message from several key members of the admiralty that dictated that he was ‘officially mandated’ to attend a formal inquiry later that day and to be ready to speak at 1600.

At first glance Jim told himself it had to be a joke and a bunch of wise guys on campus wanted to make Jim squirm a little, but then upon closer inspection he realized that every last one of the senders were verified and this shit was  _ really happening.  _

Forget time traveling psychopaths and the rush to save the next planet -  _ this  _ was going on the top of the list of Horrible, No Good, Really Irritating Things Jim had to deal with in his life. At least Nero could be kicked into a black hole, Jim couldn’t say the same for admirals. 

Now, hours later, Jim stood at attention in a room not much different from the one where his disciplinary hearing had been held. Yet unlike that room, this one was much smaller and only contained Jim himself along with four other admirals who sat behind a solid wood judges’ panel that was raised to give its occupants a sense of superiority as they looked down on those standing before them. 

Behind him were long rows of empty chairs that made Jim think of the seats in a colosseum where the watchers would sit to cheer on the gladiator battles. He had yet to figure out yet whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that he wasn’t being tried in front of his peers. 

All the admirals were seated and watching him with rapt attention, giving Jim the unnerving impression he was attending his own pending execution. 

“Do you know why you have been summoned today?” Admiral Dunval questioned, her jowls quivering as she spoke. 

“Not for certain, sir,” Jim replied seriously. 

“But you can probably guess, correct?” Dunval pressed. Her aged, human face was weathered by time and struggle and was now pinched into a frown as she looked down at him. 

“Enough of this,” Admiral Didnun interrupted gruffly. He was a Grez'el, a species consisting of individuals with bulbous, tree-like bodies and hollowed eyed leathery faces - a face that he still somehow managed to get into an impressive scowl. “We have been gathered today for a purpose and it wasn’t to play guessing games with a cadet!”

“Indeed,” T’vak intoned solemnly before turning to look down at Jim with a Vulcan stare that Jim was more than used to at this point. He wanted to tell her he had met his quota yesterday, but he already knew the joke wouldn’t fly so he kept his mouth shut. 

“Cadet Kirk, we have summoned you here today to make further inquiries regarding the series of events before and after the attack on Vulcan. Do you understand, cadet?”

“I understand,” Jim confirmed.

“Very well, then we shall proceed.” T’vak looked down at a padd she held in her hands. “Based on academic records, you were on academic probation at the time the fabricated distress call from Vulcan was received. Is this correct?”

“It is.”

Jim held back a frustrated sigh, wanting nothing more than to point out he went over all this the night before with Acevedo and oh, by the way, was Acevedo trying to frame him for attempted genocide? Just asking for a friend. 

He knew better than to ask that here, though. Jim had no evidence of anything besides an over-zealous lieutenant commander stepping out of line by conducting an overly long debriefing that may or may not have been an interrogation in disguise. It didn’t matter if Acevedo had outright accused him of working with Nero towards the end, the most that would get him would be a slap on the wrist, if he even got that considering the hot water Jim was still cooking in.

“Then, can you explain to us why you were onboard the U.S.S. Enterprise given your academic status?”

“I snuck aboard, sir,” Jim replied, feeling his chest constrict. Between accusations of cheating and stowing away on a ship bound for a distress call, none of this looked good. 

Jim could hear Didnunl and Dunvall murmur to each other in disbelief. Then, fearing he wouldn’t get a chance to defend himself, Jim added, “For good reason, sir!”

“A likely story,” Didnun snapped. “As if you’re the first cadet we’ve seen who did something foolish because you wanted a piece of the action!”

“Enough, Didnun,” Komack spoke for the first time since Jim had arrived. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

Didnun muttered darkly to himself about entertaining nonsense but ultimately fell silent. 

“Go on, cadet,” Komack urged. “But be aware you are facing some pretty serious charges if you can’t give us compelling evidence that will make us believe it was for ‘good reason’.”

“I understand, sir.” He absolutely did. Komack folded his hands together and waited for Jim to begin, and so Jim did.

Without mincing words, he told the admirals how he had overheard another cadet talking to her classmate in the linguistics lab late one night about an emergency transmission from a Klingon prison planet when he had gone to install the hack for the Kobayashi Maru, though he was careful to feign ignorance on who he heard talking. The last thing Jim needed right now was for someone to question her and realize Jim had been nowhere nearby when he accidentally heard them talking. 

It would have been incredibly difficult indeed to explain he had always had odd moments in time when his hearing would suddenly sharpen all on its own and suddenly everything around him would become much, much  _ more _ . He couldn’t even explain it to himself, there’d be no way a council of admirals would believe him for a  _ second _ that he hadn’t been lurking nearby hoping to listen in.

Jim continued with his story and explained that the conversation he had overheard had been regarding forty-seven Klingon ships that had been destroyed after answering a supposed distress call to a Klingon prison planet. A distress call exactly like the one that Nero had used to lure the Federation ships to Vulcan. Yet what had really caught Jim’s attention was the description of the attack that spoke of “lightning in space.”

“...The amount of time between that emergency transmission and the fabricated distress call from Vulcan were too close together in time and after hearing about the description of Nero’s M.O., I felt it was imperative that someone needed to be warned.”

“You could have notified someone at Star Fleet command,” Dunval replied firmly, her voice brooking little room for argument, but Jim would take what he could get and argue anyway.

“There wasn’t any time,” Jim pointed out. “No one I talked to believed me and I knew it’d be too late to send a message by the time I managed to convince someone who could do something that I was right. So I convinced someone to help me get aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise so I could warn Captain Pike myself and have him warn the others.”

There was a long moment of silence as the Admirals looked at each other, deciding.

Finally, Komack spoke first. 

“What you did out there was reckless,” he reprimanded. “And impulsive and it could have gotten a lot of people in trouble if you had been wrong. There’s a chain of command for a reason.”

Jim fought every instinct in him that was screaming for him to argue and instead chose to keep his mouth shut for the moment and see where things went. 

“That said,” T’vak chimed in. “We cannot ignore the facts that without your recklessness my planet would not have received the additional support it needed to fight off Nero’s far more advanced ship, nor would Earth have had the time to prevent such a devastating attack.”

Again, they all looked at each other before Dunval nodded. 

“We’ve had time to review your reasons for hacking the Kobayashi Maru and, while we do not condone any unauthorized modification of Federation computers and would normally consider expelling you from the Academy, we must admit your perseverance and original thinking when backed into a corner is inspiring. Given recent events, perhaps we need more of that now than ever before.” 

“Your academic suspension will be lifted under the condition that you do not modify any other testing computers henceforth,” T’vak spoke as Dunval finished.

“I won’t,” Jim assured hurriedly. 

“Good,” Dunvall nodded then turned to look at the other admirals. When no one else spoke she turned back to Jim and added, “You may be dismissed now.”

“Thank you, Admirals, you won’t regret this.” Jim saluted and, before any of them could think twice about his pardon, he quickly made his escape. 

* * *

With that finished, he went back to his blessedly empty quarters to celebrate. Though, by the time he made it back, his elation had died down and all that was left was a growing headache. It was a steady ache behind his eyes that made him grit his teeth together with great force which, in turn, only added to his headache.

It was a vicious cycle that wasn’t helped any by the overpowering scent of perfume that had been sprayed from somewhere down the hall. It was so strong it felt like he was in a cloud of it. He didn’t want to imagine how bad it must have been closer to the source.

He sighed and rubbed his face, struggling to will away the ache so he could properly enjoy his newfound freedom.

Suddenly, the door buzzed and it was like nails on an old blackboard in the quiet of his room. It grated on every last nerve and made him want to dig his fingers into his temples to drive it out.

Jim took a deep, shaky breath and forced himself to be calm. It had been a long week, but the end was in sight.

“Enter.”

The door opened to reveal a wheelchair bound Captain Pike with a man who was dressed in the standard medical uniform, presumably his nurse, standing behind him at the ready.

“Mind if I come in?”

“Captain Pike!” Jim moved to the door, grimacing as his head moved wrong and sent a twinge down his neck. “What are you doing here? I didn’t think I’d see you upright for a while, aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

To be honest, he didn’t even know Pike had regained consciousness. Last Jim had heard Pike had been rushed to the ICU in critical condition onboard the Enterprise after his vitals dropped dangerously low on their way back from Saturn.

“He should be, yes,” the nurse said with a pointed look. Captain Pike waved him off.

“It’s been three days and I’m in stable condition, the least they can let me do is talk to you without a babysitter.” It was Pike’s turn to return the pointed look, the nurse was unmoved.

“Doctor Parish insisted that you are supervised so you don’t get it into your head that it’s okay to stand up or attempt any strenuous activity.”

This seemed like an old argument that the two of them had before based on the face Pike was making.

“ _ Strenuous activity _ …” Pike rolled his eyes so hard Jim was nearly expecting them to pop out and roll across the floor. “Yeah, well Doctor Parish can-”

“I can supervise him while he’s here,” Jim cut in before the captain could finish, which was probably for the best since it sounded like he was about to insult every last member of the doctor’s lineage. He had never seen Pike like this before, Doctor Parish must have really been something else.

The nurse opened his mouth to argue. Oh god, Jim wasn’t sure if his head could take it. He might just snap. The nurse must have seen something in Jim’s face because he quickly closed his mouth and eyed Jim closely.

“Yeah, see, supervised,” the captain continued firmly, not noticing the reason why the nurse had stopped arguing. With that, Pike then stared until the nurse, sensing he had been beaten, sighed and threw up his hands.

“Fine, I will wait outside.” To Jim, he added, ”The captain absolutely cannot put any strain on his body right now or else he’ll need to go back to surgery to fix any damage caused. This means standing up, any sudden motions like turning his head too fast or-”

Pike let out a long sigh. “I’ll be good, Carl.”

“I understand,” Jim added seriously. “I’ll make sure he behaves himself.”

Jim could practically  _ hear _ Pike rolling his eyes this time and smothered a grin. Placated, the nurse rolled Pike into the room then promptly left right after, closing the door behind him.

Once he was gone, Pike sighed again. Jim could see why Pike’s nurse, Carl, had been wary when Pike was already starting to look tired just five minutes into a visit. “Sorry kid, he and Doctor Parish both mean well, they’ve just been babying me all week and it’s been driving me up the wall.”

Jim let himself grin outright this time. “Not used to mandated bed rest? I would think you’d treat it like a well-earned vacation.”

Pike shook his head. “It’s not even close. No martinis, no music and not a single beach in sight.”

“You’re looking a lot better, though.”

It was true. As wane as Pike looked now, Jim could still remember how Pike had looked when he had found him strapped to that table in that nightmare room. How pale his skin was, the raspy catch in his breathing and how his eyes had trouble focusing on anything for long periods of time… Jim was relieved to see him so alert and oriented with a bit more color in his cheeks again.

“That’s true,” Pike admitted. “Parish has been there since I was brought in and I’m grateful for that.” He paused thoughtfully, then joked- “I’ll have to get him a gift for putting up with me.”

“Better make it the whole staff.” Jim replied, his thoughts now of the nurse standing outside in the hall. “Chances are they’re all going to help Dr. Parish kill you by the end of the week.”

“And undo all their hard work? Not a chance.” Pike laughed loudly then grimaced. Jim winced in sympathy, he could  _ hear _ the moment Pike gasped in pained surprise. He was half tempted to feign exhaustion and get the nurse to take Pike back to his room. Whatever Pike had to say couldn’t be that important it needed to risk his health so soon after a brutal interrogation.

Pike continued with a tired grunt before Jim could make up his mind. “But no, you’re right. I should get them gifts. There are things much worse than death and they’re all a creative bunch.”

With that, a soft, tired sort of silence fell on the room. It was a welcome thing after such a crazy day. Without moving from where he had been parked, Pike looked around the room for a long moment, just taking it in before finally turning back to him with a tired grin.

“So I heard you were cleared of all charges during the inquiry. Congratulations.”

“That was fast,” Jim replied, more than a little surprised. “That only happened today. How did you find out?”

Pike grinned. “I know people.”

“No kidding…” Jim remarked in surprise. 

“I’m glad they saw reason. We need more people who think outside the box and we’ll never get that if we smack down anyone who dares to peek their head outside to take a look at what’s there.”

Jim almost nodded, but thought better of it as his headache decided to remind Jim of its presence with a dull spike of pain just above his left eye. Instead, he said,

“Yeah, Lieutenant Spock told me earlier that he wasn’t interested in pursuing any charges, but I wasn’t sure if the other Admirals would do the same. They’re like dogs with a bone, sometimes.”

Pike snorted a laugh. “Watch your words, kid.”

He shifted in his chair without another uncomfortable sound. 

“Anyway, I wanted to thank you for what you did for me back there. On Nero’s ship.”

Pike was looking at him with so much pride, it made Jim want to squirm a bit.

“I did what anyone would do, sir.” At that, Pike just shook his head.

“You’re wrong. Spock told me what it took for you to convince him to agree to a rescue. It couldn’t have been easy, but still you kept going.” He paused and looked at Jim with consideration before adding, seemingly at random, “You know I’ve worked with Spock for about five years now?”

Jim hadn’t, it hadn’t even crossed his mind that Spock even existed before their paths crossed during that fateful day when everything had gone to hell.

“I’m at least somewhat familiar with how he thinks,” Pike continued “And because of that I have no doubts about his loyalty, but I know his sense of duty would have dictated that the safety of the ship came first. It would have haunted him, but he would have left me behind if it meant avoiding more damage caused by Nero.”

Jim didn’t know what to say to that. There was an odd feeling in his chest at the thought of leaving Pike behind to die like that.

“So, thank you for coming back for me, but  _ thank you _ even more for convincing Spock to be a little less logical for once.”

Jim laughed. “It really wasn’t easy.”

“I know.” That warm look of pride had returned to Pike’s face. “I’m glad you had the tenacity to see it through.”

“Yeah,” Jim replied lamely. After years of only getting attention whenever he had screwed something up royally, he didn’t know what to do now that the shoe was on the other foot.

“But that reminds me,” Pike continued before it could get even more awkward. “I didn’t just come down here to thank you.”

“You wanted to give me a promotion as well? Maybe give me my own ship?” Jim joked.

“Don’t laugh, I heard some of the admirals talking.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding.”

“Nope, they’re dead serious. Not about the ship, of course, no one’s that stupid - but they’re definitely considering something with a big ceremony and everything.”

The idea of that took a second to process.

“Well, hopefully they have enough promotions for everyone. It wasn’t just me doing the work out there.”

There was that proud look again; it was making Jim’s palms sweat. Out in the hall he could hear the nameless nurse pacing and suddenly he wanted to usher Pike out the door. He could tell the nurse was worried and just listening to the  _ thump, thump, thump _ of his footsteps made Jim’s heart ratchet up in rhythm to match the anxious heartbeat-like pace.

Jim was dragged back to the moment when Pike frowned and eyed him. “Are you alright? You don’t look so hot today.”

Jim waved off the concern. “You’re one to talk.”

Pike held up his hands.“Touché.”

Jim feigned a grin before Pike could get back to his original question, “Besides, how dare you, I always look hot. Everyone says so.”

Pike rolled his eyes, the smile now back on his face.

“I’ll make sure to pass that along to the proper authorities,” he replied drily, “But let’s hold that thought for a second - I don’t want to forget to ask you this-” he was cut off with a long yawn. 

Before Jim could say anything along the lines of  _ ‘go to bed’ _ , he quickly continued with, “I wanted to offer you a position on the Enterprise.”

When Jim was ten he found a whole stash of really old vids that his great great great grandfather had stored away in the dusty mausoleum of an attic. The technology was completely outdated and it took Jim practically a year to rig something up so he could get them to even play, but once he did he found a show that depicted a fictional life that seemed normal until there’d be a sudden unexpected twist at the end, like it turned out that the main character had died and no one wanted to tell them. Or it turned out that aliens had kept them in a human zoo and had replicated everything to look just like their environment on Earth - it wasn’t a show that aged well, okay, but it was chock full of stories just like that where it would show normal life before spending the remainder of the show turning everything upside down.

Right now, Jim felt like he just woke up in one of those episodes.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jim asked carefully. Maybe Pike didn’t hear himself. 

“I want to offer you a position on the Enterprise,” Pike repeated without missing a beat. “Not right now, obviously, but when I’m cleared for duty I’d like you to be out there with me.”

Jim had so many questions.

“Why?” was what Jim finally went with. “Sir, that last voyage may have been a success on paper, but it was a royal mess in practice.”

“That’s kinda how things go sometimes,” Pike replied, but no, there was no way Pike understood the magnitude of how badly this mission had gone.

“Sir, you told me to do better than my father, but… I don’t think I can.”

“Jim-“ Pike started. Jim shook his head and gritted his teeth immediately after. He had been so intent on what was going on he had forgotten about the sludge that used to be his brain.

“My father was a good man,” Jim continued. “He didn’t have to backstab anyone to get command.”

At that, Pike sighed. “He also wasn’t facing a stubborn, emotionally compromised Vulcan with his targets set firmly on him,” Pike pointed out gently. “Don’t think I hadn’t noticed you two constantly butted heads whenever you were together.”

Jim flushed in embarrassment. “Yeah, well…”

Pike rolled his eyes. “What I’m saying is, you did good. Not every task out there is going to be easy. Eventually you’re going to come to a moment where you’re stuck in between a rock and a hard place and not know what to do. It’s at moments like these that I want people out there with me who can roll with the punches and still save as many lives as possible. People like  _ you. _ ”

Jim honestly didn’t know what to say to that that wasn’t some half-assed quip, so he said nothing at all.

Eventually, Pike continued. “Besides, you’ll be happy to know there won’t be any Vulcans gunning for you on the Enterprise.”

Everything froze for half a beat. Jim wasn’t sure if he had interpreted that right.

“Sir?”

Mr. Spock is no longer serving on the Enterprise from this moment forward,” Pike clarified, though he didn’t look happy about it.

“Sir, if this is about the decisions he made as acting captain I can tell you that I know for a fact he was working with the information he was given and was justified in making those decisions.”

Pike lifted an eyebrow at him skeptically and suddenly Jim was hit with a sense of deja-vu. “Even the part where he marooned you on a deserted M class planet during a crisis when there was no guarantee that someone would be by to pick you up?”

“Okay, so he’s a jackass, so what? I’m not easy to get along with myself, if I was in Spock’s position I’d probably maroon myself, too.”

Pike scoffed and shook his head. “Relax, Kirk. Spock’s not in trouble for anything he did, he chose to leave Starfleet voluntarily for the foreseeable future to aid in the Vulcan relief efforts.”

That… that made sense, Jim supposed. It was only logical that the Vulcans would want to circle the wagons now after that near disaster so they could lick their wounds, make repairs to their border protection grid and take stock of what was still standing. 

He didn’t know why he was so disappointed by this news, though. Sure, they worked great together when they could finally agree on something and towards the end of their time on Enterprise he might have even said they got along, as brief as it was.

Yet that didn’t really change anything. Vulcans weren’t known to be sentimental and Jim wondered if their brief camaraderie would have held together long before they were at each other’s throats again.

“I didn’t realize you would be so upset about this,” Pike observed.

“It’s not that, it’s just…” He shrugged. “We worked well together. I thought he made a great officer.”

Pike eyed him for a long moment, neither of them saying a word.

“Anyway,” Jim waved his hands as if to shoo away the awkward subject. “Spock isn’t the reason I’m reluctant to join your crew. I’ve got bigger problems than that.”

“What’s going on?” Pike asked, suddenly looking worried. “I thought your only problem was your pending hearing. Didn’t they give you a full pardon?”

“They did. That’s not what I’m worried about and I think you should know what you’re getting yourself into. I think I’m being investigated for treason, sir.”

“What!” Pike exclaimed. “By who?!”

“Lieutenant Commander Acevedo.”

“Oh,  _ him, _ ” Pike relaxed again in his chair, much to Jim’s confusion.

“You know him?”

“ _ Of _ him. He’s a regular pain in the ass who’s more annoying than dangerous. If he’s accused you of treason it’s because he wants something, like a promotion or a pat on the back and he thinks he’ll get if he gives someone higher up ‘The Man who Helped Nero!’.”

Pike rolled his eyes.

“Do they really think someone helped him? How do we know he didn’t work alone? He did have a long time to prepare for this.”

Pike shook his head. “He could have had a million years and he still wouldn’t have the know how he did to nearly bypass Vulcan’s defenses. I agree that someone was helping him, but I know it wasn’t you. Let Acevedo bark all he wants, unless you plan on giving him a detailed confession or he finds some compelling evidence, he’s got nothing.”

“Yeah…” Jim replied faintly.

Pike sighed. “How about this, I’ll look into Acevedo. If I get him to back off, you have to join. Does that sound fair?”

Jim laughed “Yes, sir.”

“Good, now please call my nurse. I’m beat and I’m sure he'll want to gloat about it.”

* * *

That night his dreams were chaotic. He dreamed he was deep within the bowels of the Narada, lost within the deep dark shadows with only the sound of his boots to guide him forward. He was sure he was heading the right way when he heard a familiar, yet menacing laugh.

“Don’t worry,” Nero said. “We’ll all get what we want.”

And Jim woke up with a scream. 


	4. Chapter 4

When Jim was 15 years old and knew everything there was to know about _everything_ he got the brilliant idea that he was going to be a space pirate. Living in the middle of a state which drew its main source of revenue from ship repair yards, ship piers and anything you could think of that was spacecraft related certainly didn’t do his delusions of grandeur any favors.

On any given day, he was able to ride his bike in any direction from his grandma’s house and within ten to twenty minutes he’d hit a fenced off yard filled to the brim with space faring vehicles ripe for the taking. 

Every day after school, he’d go and stand outside a dry dock just outside the perimeter’s defenses to watch as ships were loaded onto the construction platforms. There were so many dry docks to choose from that even if he happened to be spotted at one and chased off, he’d just make sure to pick a different one the next day and no one was none the wiser. None of them thought it was important to report the suspicious activity of some delinquent kid to Riverside PD, anyway, so it worked out

And every day he’d imagine to himself what spacecraft he’d choose to take on his grand adventure. Would he pick a spall, agile one that could zip through the stars and zig zag through asteroids? Or would he pick a big, slow one with massive firepower that would intimidate the other pirates and make them too scared to so much as look his way? 

With a big one they’d whisper his name in fright, but with a small one it’d be in awe. Either way he’d be Cap’n James Tiberius Kirk, the most fearsome pirate of the dark seas, but he liked to consider what kind of reputation his name would bring him. Besides, if he wanted a big crew the small ship wouldn’t work out. 

Watching all those ships get moved around and be loaded onto platforms to a 15 year old kid was like standing right outside a bakery while the scent of freshly made bread wafted outside the door. He was starving. 

Finally, one day Jim threw all caution to the wind and decided he was going to break into one of the dry docks. It wasn’t hard to do. He had spent the better part of three months studying their security algorithms with eavesdropping software - along with his own eavesdropping ears and when the time was right, it took maybe all of an hour before he was inside. By that point, he was a fox in a hen house.

The dry dock, of course, hadn’t been expecting anyone to get past their top of the line security and were thoroughly shocked when some bratty 15 year old chose to _commandeer_ a recently repaired space-faring skipper to ride into the sunset.

He didn’t get far, of course. The owners of the dry dock might have lacked the foresight to beef up their external security, but they apparently were wise to the possibility of any internal workers getting wild ideas and set up precautions. Jim, understandably, had no idea these precautions existed and tripped every single one.

It had been more than a little humbling to have his wings clipped barely ten minutes into what he had told himself would be the greatest heist of all time.

Though the seven Robo-Police that had been sent out to collect him **IMMEDIATELY** made up for it more than a little. His infamy would precede him!

Of course, that sense of pride was then immediately shot to hell when he was tossed in a county holding cell and left to wait while the very human officer on duty tried to reach his next of kin. At that time his mom could have been anywhere from Mercury to deep within the Neutral Zone on a recon mission for all anyone knew and his Uncle Frank was always three sheets to the wind, so it didn’t take long to realize it was his grandmother who ultimately had to be called.

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but Jim thinks those scorned women had nothing on his grandmother when she learned what he had done. Jim had known he was in trouble the minute he heard her shuttle arrive. She was verifiably the eleventh plague of Egypt with the way she descended on the station and demanded to know where her idiot grandson was.

In the end, the owners of the dry dock had dropped all charges and were so impressed by his ingenuity they even ended up offering him a job, but not before his grandmother made sure he _thoroughly_ regretted his actions. 

That was just how his grandmother was. Her and grandpa’s no nonsense attitude with life and their stubborn refusal to let Jim get away with anything were probably the only reasons Jim grew up with any kind of moral fiber in him to begin with. Without them he’d probably end up dead in some alleyway, or worse, locked up in some seedy club drugged to the gills in an attempt to drown out all the noise.

She was also the reason he didn’t completely lose his mind when he first came back from Tarsus IV and the world hit him like an angry bag of bricks. When suddenly the noise, the light, _everything_ was too much. She was the one who sat down with him and rubbed his back when she found him in his room one day, cowering in a corner, shaking from head to toe with his hands over his eyes.

_It’s okay, Jim_ , she had soothed him back then. _Calm down. Just breathe._

Yet despite everything, that night had been their first ever all out screaming match. His grandma shouting at him about how stupid he was for trying to steal a space craft, how stupid he was for trying to leave when it wasn’t safe out there when he couldn’t even control his senses - and Jim screaming back about how he didn’t care because he hated it in Iowa. How he hated it and wanted to leave and when he did he’d never come back!

Eventually, when they both had calmed down, his grandma just looked sad and Jim didn’t have it in him to fight anymore. So, when his grandma asked him to please stay just until he got his abilities under control… He did. 

Jim owed them both so much, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to repay them - but then, if he ever told Grandma that she’d probably give him hell for even thinking it in the first place.

That was why he had chosen to stay in that backwater dump for as long as he did. It was why he had taken the job at the dry dock as a security consultant even if it completely bored him out of his skull the whole time.

That was why, when Pike found him years later, Jim couldn’t bring himself to tell them goodbye until he had reached San Francisco. He still made it a point to keep in contact with her and grandpa to let them know how he was doing, but quickly disconnect the call at the end when she’d always go quiet, look at him with worried eyes and tell him that he could always come home if he ever needed to.

_Was leaving home really worth it_? was always the implied question.

The answer had always been and would always be yes, absolutely _yes_ . A thousand times _yes_. He had been slowly suffocating in Riverside and probably would have probably died there as an old, bitter man who had done nothing with his life and regretted every second of it.

The only reason he had gotten out in the first place was because he had done it on impulse and hadn’t given her time to talk him out of it. He loved her, but she was always convinced that Jim was on the verge of a nervous breakdown if he didn’t have someone like her around to help him control it when his senses got out of control and if that happened then he’d get lost.

But he was fine. He had kept his promise. He hadn’t had any problems with hypersensitivity in ages and to spend his whole life rotting away in Riverside, a place that was practically designed to dull the senses was a fate worse than death itself.

Except now he was beginning to wonder, privately to not give his grandma any ideas, if maybe his grandma had a good reason to ask him to stay. 

* * *

  
  


**_“I can’t believe we’re stationed together-”_ **

****

**_Laughter._ **

****

**_“Did you hear about-?”_ **

****

**_A bang._ **

****

**_“I don’t know if-”_ **

****

**_Something big scraping heavily across a metallic surface._ **

Jim fought not to get lost in all the sounds as he made his way towards his destination at Terminal 3 in the Starfleet Academy Shuttle Bay. What was usually a pretty calm and quiet area of the base, outside of outings and training sessions, was now overflowing with energy and noise. Everywhere he looked there were people, the majority of which looked like excited former cadets excitedly and **loudly** chattering to each other in groups about their new placements. Jim could understand their excitement, but if anyone had asked him he felt that they were a little too loud for it.

Where were the cranky old admirals who constantly shushed everyone and handed out infractions for the stupidest things?

_I’ve become old and crabby_ , Jim thought, wryly.

Yet despite the almost overwhelming noise, scattered here and there were isolated groups - quiet, somber groups. Jim knew exactly who they were with barely a glance at them.

Their grief was so palpable that it was almost a physical thing that Jim could feel it ebb and flow over all the other noise and threaten to drag him in - an occasional soft sob, but mostly a strange tension hung in the air around them that felt like a taut string about to break. After the first time seeing one of those groups Jim learned to stay away from them and treat them like they were dangerously silent whirlpools in the sea of noise.

He felt like a heel, he recognized some of those families as they waited for the bodies of their loved ones to be returned to them. He just didn’t know what to say to them.

“Jim!” Bones’s voice broke through the noise of the crowded shuttle bay. It was no small wonder that his voice was distinguishable at all considering the engines of some shuttles had begun powering up, adding to cacophony and the echoing metallic thumps but _somehow_ Jim still managed to pick it out in the din. He supposed it could be attributed to all the times he had to hunt him down by sound alone in a crowded bar when there were too many bodies to see with any accuracy or, in other more traumatizing scenarios, to know when to _not_ hunt him down in a bar. The giggling that accompanied the doctor’s voice usually gave it away.

Jim fought down a shudder at the thought.

“Hey, Bones,” Jim greeted when Bones had finally pushed through the crowd to reach him. The other man pulled Jim into a rough hug then let him go to take a step back.

“Where the hell have you been?” Bones shouted to avoid being drowned out in all the noise. “I haven’t been able to find you for the last week and no one will tell me anything!”

“Busy,” Jim shrugged. “It’s a long story”

“What?” Bones cupped a hand to his ear and tipped his head in Jim’s direction with a frown.

“Long story!” Jim replied, raising his voice a little.

Bones shook his head as if to say, _still can’t hear you_. His frown was even more pronounced now. Jim could recognize the frustration growing and decided the story would just have to wait.

_“Deaf_ ,” Jim signed, teasing the other man. _That one_ Bones knew fairly well, if only because Jim teased him with it all the time. It seemed to do the trick, though, because the frustration disappeared and in its place he just rolled his eyes and whacked Jim’s shoulder.

_“Asshole,_ ” Bones signed back, albeit a bit clumsily. He had spent one entire evening out complaining about not needing to learn an outdated language when they had universal translators, sublingual language processors, cochlear transistors and, if worse came to worse, _plica vocalis_ oscillators.

_Well, who’s laughing now?_ Jim thought with a chuckle.

_“Which one is yours?”_ The other man continued.

That was an easy one, Jim had checked and double checked his orders on his padd so many times he could recite them in his sleep.

_“Three_ ,” Jim held up his hand and Bones’s eyes lit up. For a moment it looked like he wanted to sign something else, but then threw up his hands in frustration and just shook his head before pointing in the direction Jim had originally been making his way towards. Bones wanted to walk him there? Jim shrugged then nodded.

**_“I can’t wait until-”_ **

****

**_A shout._ **

****

**_“Did you want to-?”_ **

****

**_Clanging._ **

****

**_“I don’t really want-”_ **

****

**_A high pitched beep periodically from somewhere to Jim’s left._ **

With nothing specific to focus on, the sounds in the room came rushing back in like waves that had been held back by invisible hands.

By the time they had finally made it through Terminal 2, Jim was clenching his teeth together so tight he was beginning to develop a headache. Slowly, he forced his jaw to relax and made a conscious effort to avoid tightening it again.

Thankfully, it seemed to calm down by the time they reached Terminal 3 and Jim could finally breathe again. They found an out of the way spot without too many people milling around where they could drop their bags.

Bones was smiling ear to ear as he pulled Jim into a bone crushing hug. Jim groaned and patted him on the back.

“Where have you been, kid? I haven’t seen you for a while.”

Jim laughed as Bones released him and stepped back. “I was shipped out on the U.S.S. Intrepid almost immediately once I was cleared for duty. They had me patrolling the border protection grid for any bogey’s so communication was limited.”

It had been the most god awful rotation he’d ever done - and that was saying something considered Botany was literally staring at plants all day. He had spent four months on a cramped ship with a handful of other anxious people listening to their worried heart beats, suffocating in the smell of sweat and grease and watching lights flash at his work area in the Phaser Station while they waited for some boogie man that would never come. Jim had wondered what would change after Nero’s attacks and he had gotten his answer - paranoia.

Though he supposed he could have gotten a worse job and been sent on body collection detail to retrieve the crew still M.I.A. from the Narada Incident months prior. Jim didn’t think he could have done it - to search for the bodies of people he had known and probably saw in class every day. People who probably hadn’t even known they were under attack until the hull depressurized and they were sucked into space to die, gasping and alone.

“I tried to get in touch with you, too,” Jim continued with forced cheer, shaking away the dark thoughts. “But it sounds like you were pretty busy yourself, _Chief Medical Officer._ ”

Bones flushed. “Oh, shut up!”

Jim laughed. “Oh come on, this is great! Why would you be embarrassed? You worked hard for this!

Bones grumbled under his breath a bit more before a wry smile broke out on his face. “Me, a CMO. Imagine that.”

“I bet it’s because someone told the Board the work you did on the Enterprise.”

The doctor had a bashful _aw shucks_ expression that he was trying unsuccessfully to hide with his usual gruffness. “I did nothing special out there, I did my job. Though I heard you got a nice promotion, too, _Lieutenant._ ”

Jim shook his head, grinning widely. “When do you ship out?”

“In a few hours.”

“A few hours?” Jim’s face fell. They had just met up again and already they barely had time to maybe grab a bite and catch up. “What are your orders?”

Bones puffed out his chest proudly. “The U.S.S. Enterprise herself.”

Jim sucked in an excited breath and grabbed Bones’s shoulders. “The Enterprise? No way!” He laughed excitedly. “I got the same!”

Pike had made sure to hunt him down the moment he had returned. Those four months of medical leave had done wonders for him, besides the odd limp and the cane Jim would have known he’d ever undergone severe torture.

“Oh _great_ ,” Bones griped, but he couldn’t hide the matching grin. “Just when I thought I was rid of you.”

Then he laughed when Jim whooped and shook his shoulders. “Now you’re stuck with me!”

“Oh, _great._ Now I _know_ I’m being punished for _something._ ”

* * *

  
  


It was strange to be back on the Enterprise again after everything that had happened. It was even stranger to walk through the halls at a sedate pace and to have everyone else doing the same, no emergency spurring them all into barreling around corners and shouting commands.

He was glad he got the chance to do it, though. The Enterprise was beautiful to look at once he had the time and Jim saw something with new eyes every day he was there. He couldn’t help but be awed by her scale and sleek new design. He could still remember the last time he had seen her from the shuttle and felt the very same thing. Only then he had been distracted by the pending ruling of the disciplinary hearing and what would happen if he was found aboard the ship - or even what he would do once he got aboard - that he didn’t have the luxury of taking it all in.

Uhura approached him on his first week aboard and right away he knew he was in trouble. 

He was eating breakfast in the mess hall when it happened. There usually wasn’t anyone there at that early hour, with Gamma shift still working and Alpha shift not needed yet, so more often than not he’d find he had the entire mess hall to himself. This also meant that there would be no witnesses if Uhura had decided to gut him with a fork, he realized afterwards. 

She had approached him early one morning and none-too-politely dropped her tray on the table in front of him. At his look of surprise, she set her hands on her hips and glared down at him.

“Mornin’, Uhura?” Jim hazarded a reply. The wrong one, apparently, because it only served to deepen her glare.

“What is your problem with me, Kirk?” Her voice was calm, but Jim could hear the barely restrained anger just below the surface.

“I… don’t know what you mean?” Jim replied slowly. Usually he had a pretty good idea about the things he did to piss people off - it helped to know in case he needed to make himself scarce in a hurry. In this case, though, he was genuinely wracking his brain in search of what he could have done this time that would have landed him firmly on Uhura’s bad side and was coming up empty. 

She wasn’t buying it. She shifted her weight and leaned forward to tower over him.

“Then why was I questioned four months ago about the emergency transmission I received from Klingon space?”

Oh, shit. He had nearly forgotten about that.

“How did you even know about that? Have you been spying on me?”

“What? No!” Jim denied, then paused. “Wait, you were questioned four months ago and you’re only getting mad about it now?”

Uhura’s face darkened considerably. “I’ve _been_ mad about it, Kirk! Why the hell are you listening in on the conversations I have _in my room_?”

“I’m not!” 

“Then how would you know about it? The lab was near empty when I got that transmission and I didn’t tell anyone else about it except my roommate. I already know for a fact she didn’t tell anyone because she thinks linguistics is ‘too boring to gossip about.’ So I want to know how you found out about it.”

Well, shit. Jim hadn’t thought this far ahead when he had told the admirals what led to him sneaking about the U.S.S. Enterprise. He had known they would investigate his story and Uhura was likely to be involved, but he hadn’t considered that at the time Jim knew the information that she had probably been the _only one_ with that information.

Yeah, he was an idiot. 

“What did you tell the admirals?” Jim asked, worriedly. He wasn’t sure they’d be so lenient the next time he found himself in hot water with them for ‘leaving out information’. 

Uhura threw her hands up. “Seriously, Kirk?!”

“What? I’m just curious!”

“So am I.”

Jim sighed. 

“Look,” He replied, thinking fast. “I wasn’t anywhere near your room when I heard what was going on, and I didn’t even mean to hear it to begin with.” Uhura looked unimpressed, but Jim barreled on before she could say anything. “I was out in the courtyard because I was stressed about the Kobayashi Maru-” Uhura made an annoyed sound and rolled her eyes. Jim continued - “So I decided to help a friend test run some piece of tech he had been working on. We set it up, turned it on and suddenly there was your voice. I originally wasn’t going to listen in, but you mentioned the lightning in space and I was curious. You didn’t say anything else about it, so we moved on. That’s it.”

Uhura stared at him for a long time, disbelieving. “So, you’re telling me that you were eavesdropping on me ‘by accident’?”

“Yeah!” 

“What kind of tech?”

Jim shrugged. “He just said it was something experimental. It looked like a relay, I figured he was testing some new way to talk long distance.”

“Admiral T’vak didn’t mention anything about this.”

Jim shrugged, feigning sheepishness. “I didn’t want my buddy to get in trouble. He wasn’t supposed to be working on it.”

“If you’re lying to me-”

“I’m not, I swear.”

Not entirely anyway. 

Maybe not _everything_ he said had been honest, but it was the truth that Jim hadn’t meant to overhear Uhura talking to Gaila that night. 

It had been late, he had been running himself ragged checking and double checking _everything_ about his plan to hack the Kobayashi Maru the next day, going over every little detail in his mind. His roommate had gotten fed up with his pacing and told him to take a walk or something, so he did and eventually he ended up in that courtyard. 

It had been so quiet that night and his nerves had been so strung out he bet he could have heard a pin drop in the Sahara if he had bothered to listen. That was _maybe_ an exaggeration, but it wasn’t far off considering it meant that for the first time in a long time his childhood problem of hypersensitivity had returned at an all-time high. It also meant that when Uhura had gone back to her room only a few halls over, Jim could hear every word and he had meant what he had said, the mention of lightning in space had immediately caught his interest. 

Uhura eyed him for a long moment then sighed. It was absolutely fascinating to watch the urge to punch Jim in the face leave her as her shoulders dropped fractionally. It was like watching a pressure gauge drop back down to zero.

“I told them the truth,” Uhura finally replied. “They didn’t seem angry when it was over so you’re probably not in trouble.”

Jim pulled back with surprise as she suddenly jabbed a finger in his face. “But if I find out you’re lying to me or you ever do anything like that again, I’ll make you _wish_ the admirals had court martialed you and _ejected you into space_. You got that?”

And with that she grabbed her tray and gracefully stormed away, ignoring his stunned-

“Loud and clear.”

  
  


Things calmed down after that. He’d occasionally pass Uhura in the halls, but beyond a few dark looks directed his way, they didn’t interact much and life fell into an easy routine. 

By the third week, Jim had started forming his own habits. At 0500 every morning he’d wake up, lounge in bed for the next fifteen minutes listening to the gentle hum of the ship until the lights in the room gradually grew too bright for him to ignore.

After that, he’d head straight to the Mess to catch a bite to eat and after he finished his meal in relative silence, he’d then report to the phaser station somewhat early to relieve the previous shift of duty and take over instead. 

_“I know it isn’t a glamorous position_ ,” Pike had said. _“But work hard and before you know it you’ll make your way up the ranks all the way up to the captain’s chair.”_

So, he did. He showed up everyday, put his all into the work and enjoyed the hell out of it. Then when he got off shift he’d find a quiet place to sit and do more research on phaser wiring, internal components and thermal fusion battery cores. For those first three weeks he lived and breathed phasers.

Then after those three weeks, things started getting weird. It wasn’t immediately noticeable, at first. 

At first it was only little things that were mildly irritating but overall inconsequential. A sound would be too loud - much louder than Jim was ever used to - then quickly fade to a normal volume. The taste of food would randomly have bursts of overwhelming flavor that would leave him gagging before it disappeared as quickly as it came. His uniform would suddenly feel itchy and abrasive before it too went back to being its everyday, unobtrusive texture.

It never lasted long, which made it worse. It always lasted just long enough to baffle him and make him question his own mind. 

The other problem was that these little episodes were steadily growing worse and beginning to affect his concentration. It was hard to rewire a console when suddenly he could hear the creaks of the entire ship as it shifted. It wouldn’t be so bad if he worked alone and could get away with his moments of inattention, but he was working with some very smart people with keen eyes. 

His phaser station shift mate, Lieutenant Commander Salaza, was one such person.

Salaza was a Catalana, a quadrupedal race of lizard people with amazingly vibrant blue and black scales that covered xer entire body and gave xer a stunning appearance. Xhe was one of many of the lizard species who dwelled deep beneath their surface on the tropical forest-like planet of Suddi, only coming to the surface once in their planet’s year to mate and then return to the depths below.

Salaza had been the first of xer kind to join Star Fleet, the other of xer species completely baffled at the idea of leaving their dwelling of dirt and stone for some metal dwelling instead. Salaza had told him that xhe had joined because xhe was curious about the ‘top dwellers’ that had come to xer planet with their strange ways. Xhe had been part of Star Fleet ever since and hadn’t regretted it - except, xhe admitted privately to Jim, xhe missed xer dirt. Top dweller beds were too weird. 

The first day he had met xem, xhe had risen onto xer haunches, taken one look at him and then said, in a raspy voice that Jim would soon find out was characteristic of the Catalanan people,

“This one did not know top dwellers allowed their hatchlings to wander so far from the nest.”

Jim had no idea what to even say to that and honestly couldn’t really tell if xhe was teasing him or not. So, in the interest of not ending up with a broken nose, or worse, he carefully decided to go with ‘xhe’s teasing me’ and gave xer a careless shrug.

“Guess no one was watching the nest,” he replied jokingly before suddenly hoping that he didn’t stumble into a Catalan insult of some kind. The Catalan tilted xer head at him in a way eerily reminiscent of Earth lizards sizing up a snack then clicked xer tongue at him twice. And that was that.

He wasn’t sure what xhe was looking for at the time or what xhe might have found, but he seemed to pass some test because after that xhe was positively delightful. As much as a towering six foot lizard creature with wicked looking teeth and claws could be, anyway.

“ _Hzata-_ Kirk-Lieutenant,” Salaza spoke up after they had begun the shift that day. The Catalanan’s language was so wildly different from what the Federation was used to that they still hadn’t figured out how to seamlessly translate everything the Catalanan’s said. Sometimes that meant a unique speech pattern, other times it meant certain words just weren’t translated at all.

It made for an interesting conversation.

“This one is inquisitive.”

“Go ahead,” Jim replied distractedly. It was their team’s turn for the monthly calibration of all handheld phasers currently out of Security rotation. As a result, all of their workstations were completely buried with small, black phaser cases. When the workstations couldn’t handle even one more box, they then started stacking them at the foot of their desks where they’d patiently spend the shift waiting to be tested. Jim had done this during a service rotation for Security at the academy and it was a task more tedious than anything. He was glad to see that some things never changed.

At the moment he had one phaser out of its case and resting on the desk in front of him with a tricorder placed to the side taking readings.

“Are top dwellers capable of detecting temperature fluctuations in other top dwellers?”

“What?” Jim blinked up from the tricorder in confusion. “No? I mean, I don’t think so?”

The tricorder beeped the all clear. Jim tapped the screen to record the results then gently set the phaser back into its mold, clicked the lid shut and put the case in the ‘finished’ pile. 

“I’m confused, Salaza. What are we talking about here?”

Salaza clicked impatiently. Xhe sheathed xer claws to input xer readings into the computer.

“Temperature fluctuations, _hzata_ -Lieutenant,” xhe rasped.

“Yeah, but I don’t understand what you mean by that. Humans feel hot and cold depending on the climate, but I don’t understand what you mean when you say ‘detecting temperature fluctuations’ with other humans. Are you referring to sweating? Or shivering?”

Though, to be fair, when Salaza used the phrase ‘top dwellers’ xhe was usually referring to all species that normally lived above ground and humans tended to get grouped with the rest of, well, almost the entire galaxy. So it was entirely possible she was referring to some other top dwelling species that could detect when one of their own changed temperatures. Could Betazoid’s do that? They _were_ a highly empathic species… His Xenobiology classes were escaping him at the moment.

His tricorder gave him a happy chirp, but Jim only frowned at the readings for the phaser on his desk. The readings were giving him the all clear, meaning the phaser was functioning perfectly, but the phaser had felt weird when he had pulled it out of the box and it smelled _off_ when he had run the test. An oddly sweet smell that was not unlike the smell of perfume after it was sprayed on a hot diesel engine, which it was so out of place that Jim just had to run the test again. There was no way this phaser should have been getting an all clear.

Salaza thumped xer tail against the floor in dissatisfaction, pulling his attention back to the conversation. The phaser was bothering him now, though. “No, _hzata_ -Lieutenant. This one is referring to the sight of top dwellers to other top dwellers. This one has noted multiple instances of scaleless top dwellers referring to others of their kind as ‘hot’.”

McKenzie, an ensign and fellow human, snorted a laugh. Up until that point she had kept to her work and hadn’t said much while they tested one phaser after another, except now she was grinning shyly.

“Xhe means cute.”

Oh. _Oh._

Jim smothered a laugh. Even if Salaza didn’t seem to mind him and his ‘top dwelling’ quirkiness, he doubted xhe’d like it if xhe thought Jim was mocking xer.

As if to prove Jim right, xer tail thumped against the floor in an agitated, rhythmic pace.

“This one does not comprehend nor care for ‘cute’, this one wishes to comprehend temperature fluctuations. Explain.”

Once again, Jim’s tricorder chirped happily. _What the hell was going on?_ This couldn’t be right.

Distantly, he could hear the ensign haltingly explaining the human version of the birds and the bees to the Catalanan, but he couldn’t focus on that. The smell had gotten worse since the last test but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. He had never smelt anything like it before, but it was definitely coming from the phaser. Was it the battery? The wiring? Could it have been defective? If it was, then was the tricorder defective, too?

“Where is this coming from?” Jim asked himself. It felt like he was talking through a cloud of fumes.

Both McKenzie and Salaza were looking at him now, McKenzie unsure and Salaza’s head tilted quizzically.

“ _Hzata_ -Lieutenant?”

“What are you talking about?”

He waved a hand over the phaser sheepishly. The smell was beginning to get to him, he couldn’t think clearly anymore “Nothing. I’m just… I think there’s something wrong with this phaser.”

Salaza’s head tilted in the other direction. “How does the analyzer explain?”

Jim threw up his hands. “All readings are coming back normal, but that can’t be possible.”

Concerned, McKenzie stood up and walked to his work station.

“It looks fine to me,” she replied after a long moment of studying the phaser. “Nothing looks wrong.”

It was Salaza’s turn now. Xhe dropped from the chair to all fours and closed the distance between their stations in the blink of an eye, stopping a hair’s breadth from the phaser and sniffing.

“ _Hzata-_ McKenzie is correct _,_ ” xhe finally said. “This one senses nothing amiss.

Jim looked down at the phaser with doubt, it felt like the room was beginning to sway.

“It just smells wrong,” he stated weakly, struggling to come up with a way to explain. Nothing about this felt right. 

“ _Hzata_ -Lieutenant tired,” Salaza clicked sympathetically. “ _Hzata_ -Lieutenant-Grade in need of healer.”

“But-!”

“You _have been_ acting weird lately,” McKenzie offered sheepishly. “Olfactory hallucinations are common with illness, fatigue and just general upset.”

Salaza clicked xer tongue again and pushed him away from his station with her tail. “Go. Return when healed.”

“But, I’m not-”

Salaza clicked xer tongue again, interrupting him before xhe forced him to stand with a slight push. 

“This one will listen when a healer examines,” Salaza replied, allowing no room for arguments. 

Jim sighed, knowing when he’d been beat. “Can you at least just set that phaser aside until I get back?”

Salaza and McKenzie both glanced at each other before McKenzie nodded placating. 

“Of course.”

* * *

Sickbay was bustling when he arrived. 

  
  


Nurses rushed to and fro forcing Jim to sidestep to avoid getting in their way before they disappeared into a room with two scary looking robed figures standing right outside in a stance that just screamed _Just try something_.

“Over here,” Bones beckoned from an examination room, dragging Jim’s attention away from the general chaos.

“Did Salaza call you or are you developing some ESP you haven’t told me about?”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Bones rolled his eyes. “If it’s anything, it’s a Bullshit Detector, it goes off every time you breathe.”

Jim laughed as Bones pulled out a medical tricorder and started scanning.

“What’s with the party?” Jim jerked his head towards the door and the madness outside. Bones sighed and rolled his eyes.

“The Drid ambassador and his wife have been staying with us for the past week and during their stay, the ambassador’s wife ate something that violently disagreed with her and she was brought here to recuperate.”

“I’m guessing she’s a fun one?”

“She’s pretty as a peach, that one, she barely even speaks,” Bones replied gruffly. “It’s her husband that I want to toss out of an airlock. _‘Fluff that pillow! Tend to her now! Prop her up!’_ it’s enough to drive a man mad.”

“Careful Bones, one of those guards might hear you.”

““Bah! Their bark is worse than their bite,” He rolled his eyes and tapped his screen a few times. “but that’s not why you’re here. So, tell me what’s going on.”

Jim hopped onto the examination table. “Not much. I’ve just been having headaches and Salaza was worried.”

Bones frowned, keeping his attention on the tricorder readings. “Salaza made it sound like it was more than that.” He gave him a pointed glance. “Xhe mentioned that you’ve been having hallucinations, you want to tell me about that? Or why you haven’t come to me about these sooner?”

Jim shrugged, albeit a bit defensively. “Because Salaza is being dramatic, I haven’t been hallucinating. I’ll comment on a smell or a sound and because Salaza doesn’t hear it or smell it, then suddenly it’s not real. Simple as that.”

He trusted Bones with his life, but… All his life his Grandma and Grandpa stressed the importance of not telling anyone the whole truth. For years they had coached him on hiding in plain sight and laughing off suspicions.

_Lies are powerful deceivers_ , his Grandma told him once. _But half-truths are all the better. No one expects to look for a lie buried in a truth._

The way they had acted when they first sat him down and explained why Jim was suddenly hearing things that weren’t there or seeing things no one else could had given Jim horrible flashbacks to when his Aunt had done the same thing on Tarsus IV.

_They’ll come for you if you aren’t careful._

Maybe Grandma and Grandpa hadn’t said the exact same words Aunt Linda had, but the implication was there all the same. What Jim had wasn’t unnatural, it couldn’t be when the whole family had it, but it wasn’t something to show off if he didn’t want to end up taken away.

He had been 16 when they told him that and their words had never left him.

“I get the impression that this is something that’s happened before,” Bones prodded, a bit more gently. “Else this wouldn’t be such a big deal.”

“Yeah…” Jim admitted. “It’s happened a few times before.”

“What’s been going on?”

Jim sighed. “I don’t really know. I don’t know how to describe it. I’ll be fine and then suddenly everything seems louder and I’ve got a headache bigger than Texas. Or I’ll be eating something and then out of nowhere it smells so strong I get nauseous from it.”

Half-truths.

Bones sighed. “Look, I wanted to wait for you to talk to me about this yourself because it wasn’t any of my business, but it sounds like something we need to talk about. I know about your Sentinel gene, but I’m going to need to know more information to figure out what’s normal and what’s an actual problem.”

Jim froze. “My what?”

His brain had shorted out and the only thing he had processed from that entire sentence was ‘Sentinel gene.’

“Your Sentinel gene.” Bones repeating, giving him an incredulous look as if to say, _are you really going to play this game with me?_

“I don’t know what that is,” Jim replied honestly, but a horrible sinking suspicion was beginning to grow in his chest.

Bones eyed him for a long moment. “You’re not yanking my chain, are you?” At Jim’s expression he asked, “How do you live your entire life without knowing about this kind of thing?”

“ _What_ thing? What is a Sentinel?”

Bones sighed and sat down on a nearby chair. “Stop acting like I just diagnosed you with the Rigelian Flu, it’s not nearly anything that serious, kid. You just have a rare gene that means you have an overactive nervous system that results in prolonged periods of hypersensitivity.”

“That’s it?”

Bones shrugged. “Pretty much. There’s a lot of mystical mumbo jumbo surrounding people with the gene, but it’s not the twentieth century anymore, no one really believes in that kind of stuff. There’s nothing spooky about it. People have it, case closed.”

Jim sat there dumbstruck for a moment. “Are you sure?”

Now it was Bones’ turn to look confused. “What do you mean, ‘am I sure’? I did my dissertation on it. Half of my sanity was sacrificed on the altar of researching it. You have no idea how much I drank when I realized you had the gene, just where were you ten years ago when I needed sources?”

Jim stared blankly for a second before blurting out, “How did you find out?”

“Jim, are you being serious right now? I am _literally_ your doctor. It is _my job_ to find these things out. The better question is why didn't you say anything?”

Jim flushed in embarrassment. “…My grandparents always made it sound like some boogeyman would come and take me away if I ever told anyone what I could do.”

Bones barked out a loud laugh before clearing his throat after catching sight of Jim’s face. A little bit more sympathetically he said, “Well, I guess that makes sense. Your grandparents are what, ninety? One hundred years old?”

Jim nodded.

“Then that means they grew up during the Psi Civil Rights era. Anyone with even an inkling of an Esper rating were being taken off the streets during those dark ages. Doubt any of them came back without a few screws loose afterward. That kind of fear isn’t something that just goes away.”

Jim shook his head, but struggled to think of what to say. 

“Do you need a minute?”

“Yeah.”

And because Bones was probably the best thing that ever happened to him at that point in time, Bones nodded and busied himself with his padd, leaving Jim to his thoughts. Jim closed his eyes and forced his breathing to slow.

He wondered what his grandparents would say if he told them they had spent their entire lives hiding in Iowa for nothing. The thought made him sad to think of it, an entire lifetime wasted because of fear. 

Jim’s eyes startled open when Bones gave him a careful whack on the knee with his tricorder.

“You doin’ alright?”

“Yeah. It was just… surprising.”

“I bet.” Then Bones rolled his eyes and shoved Jim’s shoulder. “By the way, how the hell do you live your entire life without knowing what it’s called? I know you ask questions, how did this one never come up?”

“I told you, my grandparents-”

“Yeah, yeah, but what teenage brat doesn’t go behind his parents’ back to look up taboo materials. You mean to tell me you never once were like, ‘hm, I wonder why I can hear through walls. THREE FEET OF WALLS’? Really??”

Jim laughed uncomfortably. “I didn’t really have a name for it before now. It made it hard to research without drawing attention to myself.”

Bones threw up his hands in exasperation. “Well guess who has homework tonight.”

Jim groaned. “Bones…”

“Nope. Not listening. We got off track, you’re here because you're having problems with hypersensitivity. When did this start?”

Jim thought about it. “Maybe a few days after the Nero incident.”

Bones’s head snapped up in shock. “After the Nero incident-?! You mean to tell me that this has been going on for almost four months now and you haven’t thought to say a thing about it? _Not a single thing?_ ”

Jim held his hands up defensively. “It hadn’t been that bad until now!”

“How often has it been happening?”

“Maybe once or twice a day.”

“Has it been getting any worse lately?”

Jim paused to think about it. Was it getting worse? It happened so gradually that it was hard to tell. “A bit. It started as a gradual thing, but I’ve noticed it happening more in the last week.”

“I know Dr. Baird examined you after the whole thing with Nero went down and you told him what had happened aboard that hell ship. Is there anything new that you want to add to that? Anything you might have remembered afterward but didn’t think it was important enough to mention back then?”

“Like what?”

“Something you might have forgotten in the craziness of it all. Maybe something you touched? A strange smell you might have noticed? Weird lights? Something you might have heard? Anything.”

He thought about it for a while, running through the series of events that had played out that day. Everything had happened so fast, back to back. Beaming onto the ship, finding the older Spock’s craft, fighting that Romulan, finding Pike… It was all a blur and it was one that only got blurrier with time and distance. He shook his head.

“No, sorry.” He shrugged.

“Has anything happened since then that might have upset you?”

Again, Jim stopped to think about it but nothing stood out in his mind. He shook his head.

Bones sighed and nodded distractedly to himself for a moment. “Just… let me know if you think of anything, okay?”

“Yeah.” Jim eyed the other man for a moment before asking, “I don’t like that look, Bones, what’s going on?”

“That’s just the thing, Jim, I’m not sure. Most of your biometric readings are within normal range so it doesn’t look like that’s anything to immediately concern ourselves with, but that’s just barely. What I’m not liking is how high your norepinephrine and cortisol levels are, are you sure there’s been nothing going on that’s been causing you stress?”

“Nothing more than usual.”

“Right…”

“Do think that maybe whatever’s happening is because of that?”

“I can’t rule that out. Regardless of what it is, the fact that you’re having these episodes is not comforting.” He seemed to be thinking something over before finally, coming to a decision, he pulled a pack of hyposprays from a nearby kit and handed them to Jim.

“This is what we’re going to do: I’m going to loan you a medical tricorder which you’re going to keep it with you _at all times-_ ” He narrowed his eyes at Jim as if to say _don’t you forget it anywhere_ or maybe just _no excuses_. “-and every four hours I want you to take a biometric scan and send it to me.”

“Oh, come on, Bones! Is this really necessary?”

“Yes, it is. So if you try and weasel out of it I’ll hunt you down and drag you back here by your _ear_.”

“Alright, alright. You win. Every four hours.” Jm held up the pack of hypos. “What are these for?”

“Good. Those are CRH inhibitors, next time you have any hallucinations or hypersensitivity , whatever might be going on of any kind, I want you to take one to see if it reduces your symptoms. On top of that-”

“Bones-” Jim groaned, exasperated.

“ _On top of that_ ,” he continued, unfazed by Jim’s usual protests to any kind of medical care that didn’t consist entirely of a quick hypospray and an ice pack. “I also want you to keep a journal of any symptoms you might experience. Describe what’s happening, how bad it is and how long it lasts. I want to know if it’s getting worse or if the hypos are helping any. You got that?”

“Can’t I just come back for a regular check up and you run your tests then?”

“No,” Bones shook his head. “It wouldn’t be enough readings to give me an idea of what’s happening. To do that, I’d have to check you in and you’d stay here for observation to run frequent tests for the next week. _Neither_ of us want that.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Look at it like this, at least this way you’ll be able to continue darkening someone else’s doorway while I’ll still be able to get a look at your results.” Bones gently knocked his hand against one of Jim’s knees. “It’s just a precaution, Jim. It won’t last forever.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jim slipped off the table. “Thanks.”

“You can thank me by listening to me rant over a drink.”

Jim laughed. “You got a deal.”

* * *

To get to Bones’ office they had to walk down an astonishingly long, pristine corridor on the starboard side of the sickbay. At the end of which the office itself was situated, conveniently located across from the On Duty Doctor’s office and the onboard laboratory. It was close enough to the action in case he was needed in an emergency, but still separated enough to get his work done on any normal day.

Jim whistled in awe when they finally arrived. The CMO’s office was an impressive sight, no question about it. 

Inside was a spartanly decorated room with a single, long desk on the side of the room a few paces from the door with another long table adjacent to the desk running along the wall opposite to the entrance. 

The table facing the door held a bunch of impressive and expensive looking diagnostic equipment on top. Behind the main desk were two tall shelves built into the wall that were filled with human skulls, surgical instruments from a bygone era, varying versions of the medical tricorders from different points in its evolution as well as one strangely out of place common house plant.

“Nice place.”

Bones grinned widely. “It is, isn’t it? It’s really something.”

He went to a cabinet built into the wall beside the shelves, pulled out a decanter of whiskey then held it up for Jim to see. “Still interested?”

“Absolutely.”

He poured two glasses and handed one over.

“Is it okay to mix alcohol and this hypo?”

Bones shrugged. “Don’t see why not. As long as you aren’t attending any wild Orion parties, you should be right as rain. Thank God for small mercies, huh?”

“No kidding.” _That_ made his day a bit brighter, he had started to wonder if this glass was going to be his last for a while. He took a long drink and reveled in the feeling of the burn at the back of his throat. That hit the spot.

“So, what’s been going on?”

“The _ambassador_ ,” Bones spat the title like it was a disgusting word. “has been the bane of my existence for the last two days. I need to talk to someone about it before I explode and it takes all his guards to keep me off of him.”

“What’s he been doing?” Jim asked, taking a seat. “Does he need a pathway of rose petals everywhere he goes?

“Yes, actually!”

Jim tipped his head back and laughed. “Really?!”

“It’s not roses, as far as I can tell, but that is genuinely no joke. My only saving grace is the stuff practically _evaporates_ or else I’d be be with the damn things all over my infirmary. Three of my nurses are unavailable because that _bureaucrat_ is bigger than his britches. He has more attendants than Carter has pills and he _still_ needs three of my staff to toss petals whenever he so much as needs to take a piss.”

Jim choked on his drink and wheezed out laughter in between coughs.

“Breathe, you idiot.”

  
  


Jim hammered his chest for a moment. When the coughs died down and Jim was in no longer clearly about to choke to death, Bone continued with his complaints.

“It doesn’t help that the Drid are all psychic so not only do I need to make sure they’re in a special room and only certain people come and go but I also need to think happy thoughts every time I go in so I don’t transfer any bad memories. Believe you me, it’s not easy when I want to strangle ambassador Tol every time he opens his damn mouth.”

The door chimed.

The door slid open to reveal none other than Lieutenant Commander Spock himself and it was as if Jim’s insides had seized up.

Before Jim could help himself, he blurted out, “You’re still here!”

Spock turned his impassive eyes to Jim and lifted an eyebrow in bemusement. 

“Clearly.”

“I was told you left. I didn’t realize you came back.”

Jim’s awkward words finally registered in his brain and oh wow, was this what it felt like to want to crawl into a hole and die. Even Bones was looking at him like he had just grown a second head. Spock just studied him for a long moment before turning to Bones.. 

“Am I interrupting, doctor?”

Bones waved a hand dismissively. “We’re just making conversation, Lieutenant Commander. How can I help you?”

“Captain Pike wished for information regarding Lady Ambassador Aeldo’s condition.”

“Must be serious if he sent you to get it in person.”

Spock inclined his head then turned to look at Jim again. Never let it be said that Jim didn’t know how to take a hint. He downed the remainder of his drink then stood up.

“Well! I better get going.” Before he said something else momentously stupid.

“What? You don’t have to, this will only take a minute. Just wait outside for a bit.”

Yeah, how about _no_. From the moment Spock walked it it felt as if a livewire had been lit under his skin and the thought of waiting outside for Spock to exit was an excruciating thought. What would he do, nod awkwardly at Spock when he left? Or wave? Jim didn’t think Spock was the type, but any small talk would clearly be a disaster. Jim hadn’t seen Spock for close half a year since the last time they talked in the hallway and they had parted on pretty good terms, so he wasn’t sure why seeing him now was messing with him so much.

“The doctor speaks correctly, this will not be a lengthy process.”

“That’s okay,” Jim said. _I need to go shoot myself._ “I’m sure Salaza would like a status report before the end of the shift.”

Bones sighed and stood up as well. “Alright, just remember what I said, and here-” He grabbed a tricorder from the table with the expensive looking equipment and handed it to Jim. “If you’re late with your readings I’m coming to kick your ass.”

Jim laughed. “Deal. I’ll see you later, Bones.”

“See you later, kid.”

Then with a lazy salute, Jim moved to leave the room and realized his mistake immediately. Spock was still _standing_ in the doorway. Maybe he could squeeze past him if Spock moved to one side? Jim moved forward just as Spock did so as well, probably thinking that Jim would wait to let him in before attempting to leave. The result was a clumsy dance where they met in the middle before they even realized what they were doing.

“Oops,” Jim remarked stupidly. He stepped back just as Spock did the same back towards the door. This was ridiculous, Jim thought with some amusement. Spock seemed to share the sentiment.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bones laughed, ruining the moment.

Jim flushed and flipped him off as Spock continued his retreat from the room to the corridor outside. Seeing his opportunity to escape, Jim slipped out of the room and gave Spock an awkward little wave before continuing towards the turbolift.

* * *

That night he dreamed.

In the dream, he woke up in the middle of the night and standing above him was a man barely visible in the shadows of the room. What Jim can see was how the man moved with horrible jerking motions as if his body wasn’t his own and the original owner was still inside fighting to get it back. Yet before he can, he started to shake and occasionally make wretched gagging noises as if he was about to vomit. 

He was spent paralyzed with fear. He knew that if he moved the sick man would see him and attack. All he could think was that if he didn’t move, the man would go away when the light came.

Then suddenly, Jim was no longer in his room. Instead, he was prowling the halls of the ship and in front of him was a man wearing a red engineering uniform. A thrill ran through Jim at the sight of him and without warning, Jim lunged.

The man was helpless to stop him when Jim grabbed his neck and- 

Jim gasped awake in shock to complete darkness, the shadows around him pressing down upon him, suffocating him. 

“Computer, lights to 15 percent!” He wheezed in panic. The lights flickered on to reveal…

Nothing.

He was alone, but still he couldn’t shake that pure, primal _rage_ from the dream when he grabbed that engineer’s neck. Jim hadn’t needed to finish the dream to hear the **_crack_** when his neck snapped. Jim shook from the adrenaline and propped himself up against the head of the bed to wait out the night. 

He didn’t think he’d be sleeping again anytime soon.


	5. Chapter 5

He must have fallen asleep again sometime during the night because the next time Jim opened his eyes he was greeted by the sight of Bones standing over him in what was nearly the exact same position as the sick man from Jim’s dream the night before. 

Before Jim could fully process what he was seeing, his eyes widened in surprise and he let out a strangled yelp. His instinct to get out of bed and _run_ was very quickly aborted when he realized that in his restless sleep he had managed to wrap all his blankets around his legs, effectively tangling himself into wild knots.

Then reality kicked back in.

“What the-?!”

Bones threw his head back and laughed.

“You bastard,” Jim gasped, struggling to kick his way out of the tangle of blankets. Bones just continued to laugh.

“Your face…” Bones wheezed. “Your face was so precious.”

He clapped his hands to the sides of his face in mimicry of Jim’s expression. He looked like the guy from The Scream painting, ugly face and all, and he made sure to share this thought with Bones who just ignored him to wipe away his tears of laughter instead.

“Do you need help?” He asked eventually.

“What I need-” Jim groused, kicking his legs. “-Is better friends.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Bones rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “I didn’t do it on purpose, I figured you’d hear me coming with your super-sonic hearing and you’d wake up. Why the hell are you even sleeping like this anyway?”

“Oh, I’m an acrobatic sleeper,” Jim replied with sarcastic earnestness. “I think I nearly got my Cartwheel Mount on point!”

“The only thing you got on point is being a sarcastic little shit.”

Jim slumped back against the mattress suddenly weak with laughter. “Bones, come on, help me. This stupid blanket…”

“Alright, alright.”

A few moments of cursing and kicking later Jim was finally free. He extracted his legs out of the mess that was now his bed and pulled himself up to perch on the side.

Already the morning was starting in a _wonderful_ way, he could tell that the rest of the day was going to be absolutely fantastic. Jim groaned and dropped his head to his hands to rub his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Jim complained.

“I’m here because _someone_ already forgot to send me their biometric readings. I was even nice enough to wait for the beginning of Alpha shift before I decided to come bug you. Aren’t you on duty today?”

Jim’s head shot up in horror. “Wait, what time is it? Computer, time!”

“ _The current time is 0837 Astral Standard Time_ ,” the synthetically serene voice of the computer replied.

“Son of a-” Jim cursed, shooting to his feet. “I’m so late right now!”

“ _Woah, hold your horses!_ You’re not going anywhere right now. Sit down.” 

“Bones!”

“This isn’t negotiable. Now _sit_.”

Jim made a face then lowered himself back down to the bed when it was clear Bones wasn’t budging.

“Good boy,” Bones snarked. How Jim wished looks could kill right then. He wished it _really hard_. Bones grabbed his tricorder from over his shoulder and began to take Jim’s vitals. “What’s going on with you today anyway? You’re not usually the type to oversleep.”

Jim rolled his shoulders. “Just a weird night. I kept having a bunch of really bad dreams. Every time I’d wake up from one I’d end up just restarting the same dream exactly where I left off when I finally managed to sleep again.”

“That’s not usual for you,” Bones commented distractedly. He was frowning at whatever he was seeing on the screen. “Do you remember what any of it was about?”

“What, you think this has something to do with my Sentinel abilities? Maybe I’m having psychic dreams.” He wiggled his hands for emphasis on _psychic dreams_. 

Bones looked unimpressed.

“Sure. Or, it’s more likely the stress getting to you. Your cortisone levels are still pretty high and that never bodes well for the subconscious.” He grabbed a hypo from the pack he had given Jim the day before and expertly administered it into Jim’s neck.

“Ow!” Jim complained. “I don’t see how attacking me with hypos is supposed to help me relax.”

“Stop being a baby, it barely pinched you.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt!”

Bones rolled his eyes.

“Am I free to go now? I’m already late for my shift. Salaza is going to throw a fit if I don’t get there soon.”

Salaza had already mentioned several times before that xhe hated calibrating phasers more than anything and thought it was the most pointless task xhe could have ever been assigned.

“ _Phzas_ are strong, yes? _Phzas_ do not just ‘break’. Then why is this one always checking to see if broken?” xhe had growled to xherself after they realized that it was their turn to do the monthly phaser calibration. Xhe would not be thrilled to find out Jim had missed two hours of the shift, now almost three, because of _sleep_. Xhe’d probably call him a soft topsider and give him extra duties as punishment.

“Easy, Jim,” Bones cautioned. “I think you better take some time off.”

“What? Come on, Bones. I feel fine. I haven’t even had any hypersensitivity at all. I didn’t notice when you entered the room, remember?”

“Yeah, great, yippee. That doesn’t make me feel better at all.” Bones tapped something on his screen then seemed to come to a decision. “Yeah, no. You’re taking a few days off. I’ll talk to Salaza and let xer know you need a break. It won’t kill xer to give you time off.”

Jim groaned. “Bones, you don’t understand, xhe hates phaser calibration. Xhe is not going to be happy about this.”

“I can deal with xer if xhe’s fixin’ to have a hissy fit. You, on the other hand, need to cool it before you’re so bad off you’re laid up in bed.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t anything serious.”

“It’s not,” Bones agreed. “But it’s also something I don’t understand yet. So until we find a way to reduce your stress you’re going to take a break, go for a nice walk, take calming baths, do yoga - I don’t care. Find something relaxin’ and do it. And in the meantime you’re going to follow the instructions I gave you yesterday.”

He grabbed the pack of hypos and the medical tricorder Jim had tossed on his bedside table the night before and handed them both to Jim. At the crestfallen look on Jim’s face, Bones’ softened his position.

“This isn’t going to be forever, Jim. I told you that yesterday and I meant it. We’re going to figure this out, but you need to avoid pushing yourself in the meantime. I promise you can go back to work the second your cortisone levels drop.”

Jim let out a long sigh and nodded. “Alright.”

“Great,” Bones smiled. He snapped his tricorder shut and slung the strap over his shoulder. He made to leave the room but then stopped short and turned to Jim with a mischievous expression on his face. Jim cringed and waited for the other shoe to drop - he knew that face and it almost never meant anything good.

“By the way, what was that all about yesterday with Spock?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jim lied manfully.

Bones gave him a look. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You couldn’t get out of my office fast enough when he showed up. I’ve never seen you trip over your feet and land on your face as bad as you did then. Weren’t you two getting along now? I thought both of you had kissed and made up.”

“Oh my god, Bones. Don’t describe it like that again. Ever. There was no kissing.”

“Ah,” Bones teased, as if suddenly having an epiphany. “There’s your problem.”.

“We just talked,” Jim said loudly in hopes to drown out the other man’s voice. “I apologized, we’re good. There’s nothing wrong.”

“’Methinks the lady doth protest too much’.”

“Bones, I swear to god, if you say any of this to Spock-”

Bones cackled with pure, malicious delight, but before he could say anything further his communicator beeped insistently.

_Thank everything holy_ , Jim thought fervently.

“Hold on, I got to take this.” He flipped open the device and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. “Hello?”

  
  


Saved by the bell. Jim breathed a sigh of relief

Now he needed to make sure he didn’t squander his sudden newfound freedom from Bones’ teasing scrutiny and get the hell out of there before he came back. Depending on who he was talking to, conversations with Bones could range anywhere between a couple minutes to a few hours, so it was really a toss of the dice just how much time Jim had to make a break for it.

In the end, Jim had just enough time to throw on a fresh uniform and hop into one boot before the bathroom door slid back open. Internally, Jim groaned and prepared himself for round two. 

Except it didn’t look like Bones was in the mood to tease anymore. The lines on his face had deepened in concern and he carried a grim expression.

Jim faltered with his other boot the minute he saw his friend’s face. “What happened?”

“This is just between us, alright?” Jim nodded. “I just got a call from Dr. Williams that Ensign Hamish was just found dead in the jefferies tubes near sickbay.”

What?!” Jim exclaimed, a sudden feeling of sick certainty rising in his gullet. “What happened?!”

Bones shook his head. “We don’t know yet. His body was just brought in. They were calling me just now to come in and do an autopsy to see if there was any foul play involved.” He sighed heavily, his good mood long gone. 

“It’s probably nothing. The poor idiot probably got drunk on some of Scotty’s still and thought it was a good idea to go crawling around those goddamn tubes like they’re some playground.” He sighed again. “But… In case something else is going on, you need to be more mindful of your surroundings when you’re alone, alright?”

Jim shook his head. “I doubt it’s anything serious like a drug cartel or anything, Bones. That’s not usually the kind of thing that goes unnoticed. It’s probably like you said, he got drunk and made a stupid mistake.”

Yet the dream from the night before kept playing in his head and with it the feeling of bloodlust as he had grabbed the man’s neck. He was tempted to ask if Ensign Hamish was in engineering, or if his neck had been broken, but… that would be crazy. Sentinel gene or not, he’d never had any sort of prophetic dreams before in his life and the alternative to that was too horrifying to contemplate. 

Bones nodded. “Yeah. Alright, I gotta go. You take it easy today.”

“You too.”

The doctor gave him a wave and walked out the door, face troubled.

* * *

  
  


It always amazed Jim how fast word could travel when out in space. It didn’t matter the size of the ship or how many people were aboard, the moment anything slightly interesting happened eight different departments would be abuzz with the news, all with different variations of the same story. It was like some space version of Telephone, a game Jim used to play as a kid in school where one person would say something to one person who would repeat it to another and through the grace of miscommunication the final message would end up nothing like how it had started. 

It was truly remarkable what the power of close quarters and extreme boredom could achieve. 

Ultimately, that was how Jim found out within hours that one, Hamish had, in fact, died from a broken neck and two, it was not an accident - though Jim was more suspicious of the veracity of the second piece of information considering the stories of what happened ranged from ‘ _he fell and broke his neck_ ’ to ‘ _a masked man strangled him in his sleep and then dragged his body into the jeffries_ ’.

It was a regular circus. The only thing anyone knew for certain was that Hamish was dead. The where’s, why’s and how’s were a bit murkier, but it was all anyone could talk about and the constant buzz was beginning to wear on Jim the longer he was exposed to it. It didn’t help that he was still on edge from his dream from the night before.

The problem was, Jim wasn’t sure what to do about it. He had promised Bones he would take it easy, but without a shift to go to and duties to attend he was left aimlessly wandering the halls in search of anything to do. Only there was nothing. There were no activities and all anyone wanted to do was anxiously speculate about what had happened to poor Hamish. 

It didn’t matter what room he went to, it was always there and with it Jim would remember that sickening crack of Hamish’s neck as it broke.

_You didn’t hear anything_ , he told himself worriedly. _It was a dream_.

By the time he reached the Rec Room he had already had an hour of nothing but **noise, noise noise** , and Jim was done with all of it. His head hurt and he was ready to turn around and go back to bed.

Leaving his room had been a mistake.

He should have known this would happen.

Maybe he could have handled the sound of the near constant conversation humming loudly in his ears, or the light that felt a little too bright or even the strange taste that Jim couldn’t quite describe that flooded into his mouth every time he opened it to breathe.

But no, what finally got to him was the air. The air felt impossibly heavy in the ship, it was so thick with heat it felt like a palpable force weighing on him. Within minutes, Jim found himself sweating uncomfortably and struggling to breathe. He needed to get back to his quarters before anyone else in the halls could notice his distress and ask him what was wrong.

The last thing he needed was for it to get back to sickbay that he had had a breakdown out of nowhere.

He closed his eyes and the next time he opened them he found the hallway was devoid of all people except for none other than Lieutenant Commander Spock himself. He didn’t know where Spock came from or when he got there, but he was grateful and ashamed in equal parts that someone else was there with him. On his part, Spock only patiently spoke to him in a calming, meditative voice. Jim struggled to listen to Spock’s words, his hands shaking and his breathing erratic like a fish gasping for air.

Spock stepped closer and grabbed his wrist.

“Lieutenant, it is imperative that you control yourself.”

Sure, he’d get right on that. To Spock’s consternation, Jim wheezed an only slightly hysterical laugh.

“Lieutenant, consider how a structure cannot stand without a foundation, let your breathing be that foundation for control. Do you understand?”

Unable to speak through his labored breathing, Jim simply nodded without comprehension.

“Very well, then you must follow my instructions exactly.” 

Jim nodded again, this time much more frantically, then reached out desperately to cling to Spock’s uniform. Thankfully, Spock didn’t do anything more than look vaguely uncomfortable with the contact and continued speaking evenly.

“Inhale in through your nose and exhale through your mouth.”

It was harder than Spock made it sound. All Jim could think about was air. _Air._ He wasn’t getting enough and if he stopped for a second to breathe through his nose then he’d get even less and then he’d suffocate and-

“Control your thoughts. You are not in any danger, Lieutenant. Inhale through your nose.”

This time, Jim did as he was told. He gasped raggedly, once through his mouth then a second time through his nose as directed. He could feel his lungs burning, he couldn’t do this-

“Now exhale,” Spock instructed. Upon command, the air escaped Jim’s lungs with a loud rush. “And do it again.”

They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity until Jim gradually began to feel himself start to calm. Eventually, breathing became easier.

Jim opened his eyes, unsure of when he had closed them, then flushed with embarrassment when he realized he was clinging to Spock like a scared child. He snapped his hand back and stepped away. Spock seemed to not take notice. 

“Is it necessary to contact sickbay?”

Jim shook his head, fumbling with the clasp of the side pack Bones had given him earlier. His hands were shaking too much to get the bag open and right then it was the most frustrating thing Jim could have ever imagined.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Spock took a step forward and gestured to the bag. “May I, lieutenant?”

Sure, why not? He’d already embarrassed himself in front of Spock once before, what was once more? Jim shrugged off the pack and handed it over to Spock who effortlessly opened the clasp with one swift move. 

“You are searching for the hypo, correct?”

Jim nodded. Spock extracted one and swiftly administered it in Jim’s arm with a hiss from the plunger. After a long moment, Spock asked again,

“You are certain you do not require assistance from sickbay?”

“No,” Jim replied as his heart slowed. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Commander. It was just a panic attack.”

Spock was watching him contemplatively, looking awkwardly unsure of what was expected of him. “Do you require any further assistance?”

Again, Jim shook his head. Already his heart rate was starting to slow down as the hypo did its magic. “I’m alright. It’s nothing serious. Dr. McCoy gave me those hypos to help, so there’s nothing else you can really do.”

“Are these ‘panic attacks’ common amongst humans?”

Looking slightly embarrassed, Jim shrugged. “Not really.”

He wasn’t sure how to explain panic attacks to a species that actively rejected emotions of all shapes and sizes in a way that wouldn’t make it seem like Jim was having a complete and utter meltdown. Or make it seem like Jim was in need of more help than he actually was. Thankfully, Spock seem to pick up on his discomfort and simply replied with,

“I see. In that case, it would be wise for me to escort you back to your quarters.”

“That’s not necessary, sir,” jim replied quickly. “I can make it back on my own.”

Spock quirked a brow. Already he looked like his old self again. “Perhaps, yet the odds of another attack are 22 to 1 - it would be negligent of me to allow you to return unescorted.”

  
  


Jim sighed and weighed his options. He was too tired to keep arguing.

“Alright, you win.”

* * *

By the time they arrived, Uhura was standing anxiously in front of his door. Her arms were crossed in front of her and she was tapping one foot on the ground beneath her with nervous energy. She turned immediately when she saw them approaching and dropped her arms to her side.

“Kirk!” She called. Then her eyes slid to Spock in pleased surprise. “Spock? Where did you find him?”

Jim also turned to look at him in surprise. “You were looking for me?”

Spock nodded. “I had previously informed you of this, but it is likely that you did not hear me given your previous indisposition.”

That made sense.

“What indisposition?” Uhura asked curiously.

“It’s not important,” Jim replied sharply. Uhura looked shocked at his sudden change in attitude but thankfully dropped it.

“Kirk, can we talk to you about something private?”

Jim frowned. “What’s going on?”

Uhura shook her head and looked around the hallway. “Not here. Inside.”

“Alright,” Jim sighed, opening the door and gesturing for them both to enter. After everyone had entered and the door shut behind him he leaned against the wall and asked again, “What’s going on, Uhura? Why the secrecy?”

Uhura wrung her hands restlessly. “Kirk, are you still in touch with that friend you told me about a while ago? The one that had the tech you helped him test?”

Jim could feel his stomach drop. 

“Uh, no, sorry,” Jim replied. It was true considering this ‘friend’ never existed in the first place. “Why?”

Uhura’s face fell, but then quickly became determined. “Do you remember his name? Or where he’s stationed? Or even what he used to make the tech?”

Jim shook his head, glancing over at Spock who was impassively observing them speak. “Uhura, what’s going on?”

“”You heard that Hamish was found this morning, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I don’t think it was an accident. I think he was killed because he was getting too close to something dangerous.”

“Why do you think that?” Jim asked.

“Because the night before he died he told me he overheard something _big_ from the jefferies.”

“Did he say what?”

Uhura shook her head.”No, but I have suspicions.”

“Okay… but what does that have to do with experimental relay tech?” Jim asked, desperate to get her to change her mind and decide it wasn’t worth pursuing. He couldn’t just _come up_ with some experimental relay tech that did everything he had claimed it could in such a short time.

Jim glanced at Spock again to find Spock was watching him closely with an unidentifiable expression on his face. 

“A month ago you told me that you picked up my voice from the courtyard without any trouble.”

“Right,” Jim confirmed faintly. 

“Well, when he came to me the night before he died, Hamish asked for my help to get some sound amplifiers so he could confirm what he heard and the next thing I know he’s dead.”

Aw damn, Jim thought, his heart sinking further.

“That’s why I need your friend’s help. If you could hear me from that distance, even with everything in between us, then maybe I could use that in the jefferies to try and hear what Hamish might have heard so I can figure out who would want him dead.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to look for crime scene evidence? Like DNA?”

“That’s already being done and they’re coming up empty handed.” Uhura shook her head. “No, I need to retrace Hamish’s footsteps.”

“Uhura…” Jim started.

“Look,” Uhura interrupted firmly. “I know it’s a longshot, but if your friend can’t let us use the device itself then maybe he can send us schematics so Spock can get to work on recreating it.”

Everything Uhura was saying made sense, which meant there was very little chance she was going to change her mind on this. Jim felt like a complete asshole.

“Uhura, I can’t do that.”

Uhura froze in place. “Why not?”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead.

“Because the technology does not exist,” Spock surmised. 

Now that it was out in the open Jim instinctively wanted to fall back on old habits and deny it, make up some quick-footed lie about how it _was_ real, just… out of reach. His friend was dead or a hermit on some out of range planet they wouldn’t be able to reach right away, but maybe…?

But one look at Uhura’s face made Jim swallow his pride and nod.

“So, what,” Uhura replied, a tinge of hurt in her voice. “You lied because you were spying on me? Or because you were being a creep and eavesdropping outside my room?”

“No!” Jim denied quickly.

“Then, _what_ , Kirk?”

“I told you the truth, I just made up my friend and the tech he was working on because you wouldn’t have believed me otherwise.” 

“I can’t think of a single reason why I’d do _that_ ,” Uhura snapped sarcastically. 

That was fair.

Uhura took a moment to breathe in and calm herself. Jim could see how her and Spock got along so well, they were practically the same. Both cool and composed on the surface, but deep down there was a fiery inferno that burned white hot and heaven help anyone who provoked them. Right now, Jim recognized he was on the verge of provoking the inferno and one glance at Spock’s cool demeanor told Jim that Spock was probably unlikely to step in right away.

Well, there went all the progress he had made with Spock, Jim thought wryly. He just didn’t know why it mattered. Everything with Spock was two steps forward and one step back, what did this setback matter any?

“So, let me get this straight,” Uhura resumed after she had calmed herself. “You’re trying to claim that you could hear me from the courtyard because it was a _quiet night_?”

Wow, she had a really good memory. 

“I have really good hearing?” Jim offered.

“Oh, that is such a load of-” She rubbed her face, then immediately seemed to come to a decision. “Fine then, prove it.”

“What, that I have good hearing?”

“Yeah. Prove it right now. I’m done with this nonsense, prove right now that you’re not some obsessed creep or I’ll make it my dying mission to make your life a living hell.”

Jim made an incredulous gesture as if to say ‘ _how?’_

“Lieutenant Kirk has a point,” Spock interjected. “It would be difficult to prove the distance of his auditory senses at this time without a way to satisfactorily verify his claims.”

“I could tell you what you ate for breakfast?” Jim offered. Uhura gave him an incredulous look.

“What does _that_ have to do with anything?”

Jim shrugged. “My hearing isn’t the only thing that’s good. I have heightened senses, they’re just sporadic.”

“And you have them right now?” Uhura scoffed.

“Yeah,” Jim nodded. “Bones thinks they’re tied to whether or not I’m stressed.”

“Oh, _you’re_ stressed-?”

“-For about a week now,” Jim cut her off, matter of factly. That seemed to make Uhura pause and eye him for a moment, then seemingly against her better judgement, she nodded and waved a hand.

“How do I know you didn’t just see me in the mess hall?”

“Because I was in my room until an hour ago. You can confirm that with the ship’s computer if you have to.”

“Fine. But you have to do it from over there, nowhere near us.”

Jim nodded in agreement and closed his eyes, suddenly grateful for the first time that his senses were completely out of whack. If Uhura had come to him earlier he wouldn’t have had any way to prove what he was saying. Normally his hypersensitivity was hardly a blip on the radar, only occasionally popping up to give him a bad headache or make his day awful.

This was a first.

When he was still in Iowa, his grandma used to regularly sit him down and try to show him how to control it. How to use it to his advantage even when it _wasn’t_ causing him problems. 

Every day she’d wake him early, before the sun had even risen and have him walk with her outside while grandpa trailed behind, uninterestedly munching on sunflower seeds. She tried everything she could to explain the steps she’d take to control her thoughts and the things she was seeing, hearing and tasting in that very moment.

She likened it to the difference between flipping a switch and gradually turning a valve. Before she had met grandpa she said she could barely flip the switch on or off and she was just like him, lost, but then after she began to learn how to turn the valve to decide what she wanted to let in.

Jim could learn to turn that valve, grandma insisted, but it was hard without someone to guide him. The world was a messy place and it was easy to drown in it. That was why he needed to stay home, where it was safe.

“Kirk?”

Jim forced himself to think about the task at hand. He hadn’t listened to much of what grandma had been saying back then, he hadn’t seen the point when he hadn’t any major freakouts in _years_ \- it hadn’t felt like a problem. Yet he remembered enough to give it a shot now.

He just needed to concentrate.

Focus on smells instead of the footfalls outside or the gentle heat of the room, the strange taste in his mouth that still hadn’t gone away. Smells only. 

And eventually… it was there. Bacon, oatmeal, eggs, cantaloupe. They were all mingled together with the other smells of the room, like the fresh cleaner on the floors, the gently used fabric of his bed… but like this it was like all the smells were yarn tangled together and if he kept concentrating he could pick each strand out individually.

Jim opened his eyes and grinned triumphantly. The room was swaying around him. He could still smell _everything_ vividly. It was like someone had turned up the volume on the smell of everything in the room and forgotten to turn it back down, but he had _done it_.

He wanted to whoop with excitement.

_Focus._

“I thought you were vegetarian?” Jim finally asked.

“What?” Uhura looked taken aback.

“I thought you were vegetarian like Spock was,” Jim reiterated. “But this morning you had bacon. Unless you were eating with someone else who had it?”

Uhura glanced at Spock, who looked back at her without expression, then blushed.

“I only ate one!”

“You are under no obligation to conform to my dietary needs, Uhura,” Spock replied. That only made her blush more.

“I know, I just wanted… to try it,” she finished lamely. Jim looked away awkwardly. He could tell Uhura had wanted to impress Spock and mentioning the bacon had probably made things weird. He wondered if she had a crush on him or if she just thought he was interesting and wanted to be like him.

She hurriedly changed the subject. “How did you smell that anyway? I brushed my teeth after I ate.”

Jim shrugged. “I think you might have gotten grease on your clothes.”

“Fascinating,” Spock commented. “Humans do not normally possess strong olfactory capabilities, how are you capable of this?”

Jim had the strong urge to reply with _‘magic!’_ but before he could get the chance, Uhura’s eyes lit up in excitement. 

“Wait… If you can do that then you can help me find out what Hamish heard before he died.”

“How would I do that?”

“If you can hear that far then we can go to the place where he said he heard it and listen for whatever it was.”

Jim winced. “Easier said than done, Uhura.”

“Why’s that?”

“I can’t really control it.”

“But you just did it now.”

“Yeah, and that took a lot of effort. Normally it just happens on its own and I’m a mess until it goes away. It’s not like how we normally use our senses, it’s just overwhelming.”

Her face fell. 

Jim sighed. He was probably going to regret this.. And Bones was _definitely_ going to hate this, but… He felt guilty for not being able to do anything after lying to her about the relay tech. He had to give her something.

“Look, maybe I can go to where he was found and just see what I can pick up.”

“If you cannot control it, what do you hope to accomplish?” Spock questioned. “Additionally, given that he did not inform anyone else of what was overheard, there is no way to verify you would be hearing the same thing.”

Jim shrugged. “I understand that. I can’t guarantee I’ll find anything, but I may notice something a scanner wouldn’t.”

Uhura considered it for a moment. She looked like she was still unsure whether to believe what Jim was saying was true, but then after a long moment she nodded. “It can’t hurt.”

* * *

The jefferies tube Uhura and Spock lead him to was in a lonely corridor near sickbay, tucked into the wall between electrical service panels and pressure gauges. It was barely noticeable to anyone not actively looking for it, the only thing that would give it away were the yellow safety lights that illuminated the diagonal entrance. Of course, now the tube’s entrance was cordoned off by caution tape and a warning holo that projected a message that the tube was out of commission until further notice. 

Jim wondered what Ensign Hamish had been doing down here in the first place, the tubes weren’t exactly designed for comfort and the only reason to use them at all was to do maintenance on any of the dilithium lines that were running through the area. 

“Why was Hamish in the jefferies to begin with? Did he work in engineering?” Jim asked uneasily, the dream from before once again coming to mind. He didn’t recognize the hallway, thankfully, so maybe his mind was playing tricks on him and it had come at the worst possible moment. 

He peered into the tube and was almost immediately assaulted by a horrible cocktail of smells. It was a sickly sweet mixture with a terrible aftertaste of decay followed by the rancid stench of… _Oh_. Jim coughed and backed away from the entrance.

“What is it?” Uhura pressed insistently. Spock pulled out his tricorder and approached the entrance to take his own readings. 

“Nothing, it’s just…” Jim coughed again. “A lot of smells in there.”

“Forensic scans of the immediate area indicates that Ensign Hamish was dead for 6.2 hours before he was found by the next shift. Given the ambient temperature and length of time before discovery, it is likely the smells you are detecting are of the natural decomposition of Ensign Hamish’s body and the possible defecation upon his death.”

Jim fought back a wince and quickly glanced at Uhura whose face looked pinched but was otherwise composed. Spock wasn’t wrong, but he could use some work on his bedside manner, at least for Uhura’s sake. Jim changed the subject. 

“Is this still an active crime scene? Are we even allowed to be here?” 

Uhura nodded. 

“We have Pike’s blessing to survey the area as long as we don’t contaminate any of the evidence.”

“Alright.” Jim edged closer to where Spock was standing at the entrance and braced himself for another deluge of smell. Unbidden, the memory of Spock’s words from earlier that day came back to him and without thinking of it he closed his mouth to avoid breathing in the taste.

_Let your breathing be that foundation for control._

He could do that. Already the smell wasn’t so bad when he had something else to focus on. The sickly sweet smell was still there, but it was as if it was coming from somewhere distant instead of completely drowning him in it.

Jim tentatively sniffed at the air then turned to Spock in surprise.

“I’m smelling something else besides what you mentioned, Spock. Something… sweet.”

It was too sweet. It made him want to gag. Spock tilted his head curiously then looked back down at his tricorder. 

“At first I thought I was just smelling decay,” Jim continued, forgetting to mind his words in his excitement. “But it didn’t smell right. Now I’m _sure_ it’s not death I’m smelling. I think it’s flowers.”

Flowers he’d smelled before, he was sure of it, but _where_?

“Are you sure?” Uhura questioned, growing excited herself. 

Jim shrugged. “It’s hard to make out but, yeah.”

It was like someone had buried a body with a bouquet of flowers in the jefferies tube and now the smells had mingled together to create a cloyingly rotten scent. He realized it wasn’t unlike the smell of rotting corpses laid in freshly cut grass and mud from the recent rainfall.

Jim suddenly felt sick. He swallowed rapidly, vaguely aware that Spock was watching him.

“Can you tell what kind of flowers they are?” Uhura asked, excitement still in her voice. 

Jim shook his head, willing the nausea to go away. The hallway felt… distant. He didn’t want to be there anymore and he didn’t want Uhura and Spock there anymore either, but it was a vague feeling that didn’t seem to have a place of origin. 

“I think I might know, but it’s only a hunch. Do you think you’d recognize the smell if-” She gasped. “Kirk, you’re bleeding!”

Jim dully reached up to touch his nose and sure enough, his hand came away wet with blood. What was happening?

“Yeah,” Jim replied. “Do you still need me to see if I can hear what Ensign Hamish heard?”

“That would be unwise,” Spock interjected. “You are feeling unwell and going further into the crime scene will only further exacerbate your symptoms and may lead to contamination of evidence.”

Uhura studied him for a long moment. “Spock’s right. You don’t look good at all. Besides, I’ve been thinking that Spock was right earlier when he said that trying to determine what Hamish heard is a wild goose chase-”

“I do not recall using those words,” Spock commented mildly. 

“-I think we need to focus on more concrete things,” Uhura continued. “Like these flowers. Or why Hamish was here, or possible motives - facts instead of speculation.”

“Are you sure?”

Uhura seemed to think of it for a moment before nodding. 

“Alright,” Jim sighed. “Then if I’m not needed I’d like to lie down.”

And then be sick. 

“I will go with you,” Spock began but Jim just shook his head.

“You should stay with Uhura just in case. I know how to find my way back on my own.”

Then before Spock could insist, Jim turned and left. 

* * *

His dreams were violent that night. They were of screams and hands grabbing at him. Of waking up in fright to find that man was there once more. He was there in Jim’s room, choking on his own sickness, face obscured in darkness and blood as he shuddered over where Jim was paralyzed with fear.

_Tell… them.._ The man gasps, his voice a gurgling rasp. He sounded like he’s drowning. He sounded like the words were being ripped from him as he died. 

Then, suddenly, he was in the jefferies tube where Hamish’s body had been found - only Hamish’s body was still there, curled on his side. If his neck hadn’t been bent at a horrifying angle, Jim would have though he had crawled in there to take a nap. 

Jim’s arms tingled with the memory of dragging Hamish’s body up the slanted steps of the jefferies tube and then leaving him there. He needed to get out of there-!

Yet before he could move, Hamish’s head swung up and his mouth opened as if to scream but all that came out was-

Then Jim woke again and he was alone, drenched in sweat and shaking. Everything felt distant and vague, like the world retracted itself from him and he’s in a void and all that was left was the taste of blood in the back of his throat. When he turned to look, there was a path of rotten flowers that stopped right at his bed and, inexplicably, this filled Jim with more fear than the sick man once again standing above his bed. 

* * *

Jim was a mess the next day. Everything felt wrong. The light was too bright, the normally gentle hum of the ship now aggravating and endless. His skin felt as if it was an ill-fitting diving suit that he had been forced into and now couldn’t remove. It gave him the panicky feeling of desperately wanting to claw it off without really knowing how. 

What was worse, he couldn’t get that smell of flowery rot to go away. The dream from the night before lingered in his head long after he had woken and the light of false dawn had come up in his room. He just couldn’t shake it.

He had checked the floor near his bed four times for any traces of flowers and only had that horrible smell to show for it. The final time he had done it, the panic in his chest had built up to such a degree that he half expected to find that sick man shuddering under his bed like a wounded animal.

He needed to get out of his room and do something. 

With little else to keep him busy, he eventually realized that he would end up crawling up the walls before long if he stayed in his room any longer. 

The best thing to do would be to go for a walk. He just wouldn’t make the same mistake he made yesterday. Today he would make sure to pick the rooms of the ship with the least bit of activity.

This ended up being easier said than done. 

The mess hall was, well… a mess of noise, bright lights and smells. The clanking of trays against tables and the absolutely maddening wet sound that took Jim an embarrassingly long time to realize he was hearing someone nearby chewing their food. When he couldn’t stand the room anymore he escaped to the halls which were a cacophony of chatter and footsteps. Even the Rec Room, while almost empty besides a few people chatting and playing games, still felt loud in a strange way that wasn’t entirely made from noise.

By the time he escaped to the Observation Deck he was ready to rip out his hair in rage. It was only there, once the doors slid shut between him and the noisy outside that Jim let himself finally think. 

That’s when the worries rushed in.

What was happening to him? Why was he dreaming about Hamish’s death?

Bones had sounded so confident when he had told Jim there was nothing to worry about, but then he had also said that the Sentinel gene was rare and there wasn’t a ton of information about it. As well meaning as Bones was, there was a very good chance that Bones might not be able to figure out why Jim was suddenly a hundred times more sensitive than he had ever been in his entire life or why he was dreaming about killing Hamish and hiding his body afterwards.

He wanted to be sick.

He didn’t know if he’d be able to continue like this if Bones didn’t find a solution. There were reports of hearing sensitive species or species that tolerated no physical touch on board Federation ships, but what could they do for _everything_ sensitive people? They couldn’t just put him in a soundproof room away from everyone else and still expect him to do his job.

And what if… what if his dreams of Hamish… weren’t _just_ dreams?

_Calm the fuck down_ , Jim internally told himself with a voice that sounded vaguely like Bones did whenever Jim was going off the rails. He blinked away the moisture gathering in his eyes. _It ain’t over until it’s over_. 

Jim took a seat beside the observation window. The stars were beautiful as always, nothing more than little clusters of shining light scattered on a sea of endless black. They reminded him of the white vein-like design that snaked through black marble and, as always, was left in awe. 

Beyond the hum of the ship or the footsteps outside the door, he couldn’t hear anything. The stars were silent. 

Within moments the door slid open. Jim lifted his head and was surprised to see Mr. Spock himself entered the room and looked around until his eyes came to a stop on Jim. 

“Mr. Spock,” Jim announced without much energy. “Long time no see.”

“We last saw each other approximately 9.2 hours ago,” Spock corrected. “You were not feeling well at that point in time, do you not remember this?” 

“No,” Jim tried again. “I meant we haven’t talked in a while..”

Spock opened his mouth right as Jim realized his mistake.

“That is also incorrect, we spoke last-”

Jim sighed, too tired to deal with this. “Just, forget it.”

Spock seemed to hesitate for a moment before coming to a decision and walking over.

“How do you know about this place, anyway? I figured you’d be the type to stay in your lab all day.”

Spock came to a stop and stood at parade rest. “This location has proven to be an optimal location for meditation in the past.”

“Oh!” Jim replied with sudden realization. He pushed himself to his feet then stopped as the ship seemed to sway beneath him.

“Are you still unwell?” Spock was watching him closely.

“No, I feel better.” It wasn’t a complete lie, he didn’t feel the need to lose his mind in panic, so that was good news. “I’ve just been sitting for too long, you know?”

“No,” Spock stated matter of factly.

Guess he should have expected that from Spock. Jim shrugged sheepishly.

“I guess not. Sometimes when humans go from sitting to standing too quickly the blood rushes to our head and we can get vertigo.”

At least, that was what Jim was hoping was happening. He didn’t think it was possible to feel the motions of the ship, super special senses or not. Especially considering space travel was nothing compared to the ye olde sea faring travels from a bygone era. The Enterprise wasn’t something being pushed around by the waves of space.

…Right?

“This body function sounds inconvenient and has no apparent logical purpose,” Spock noted, though Jim noticed he said this more as an observation than an insult. 

For some reason, the way Spock said it made Jim laugh. “I would say you’re right, but I’m sure it’s for something.”

“Perhaps,” Spock agreed.

It felt nice to be on good terms with Spock without some external threat forcing them together. Spock was fun to talk to.

“I never thanked you for helping me the other day, by the way.”

“Gratitude is not necessary, you required assistance and I provided it.”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed. “But I appreciate your discretion. I don’t normally have panic attacks, so I don’t want anyone to find out I’m having them now and start to worry for nothing.”

“Would it not be prudent to notify Doctor McCoy?”

“Of the panic attacks?”

“Yes.”

“I did,” Jim half-lied.”He knows I haven’t been having the best few weeks and he didn’t think it was serious enough to do more than put me on sick leave. I’m just a little stressed, that’s all.”

“Is this because of your hypersensitivity?” Spock questioned. 

“Yeah. They’ve been all over the place for a week now. I told Bones about it, he figured I was just stressed, put me on medical leave and, well, here we are.”

He just didn’t know about the newest development and Jim would bet everything and then some that Bones wouldn’t take it well if he belatedly found out things were escalating. The last thing Jim wanted right now was for Bones to get it into his head than they needed to try some new medication. After all, the hypos were working, so they probably just needed more time. Suddenly Jim felt so tired. He just wanted to feel normal again.

He decided to change the subject.

“Do you want me to go so you can meditate?”

“That will not be necessary. I do not require meditation at this time.”

Oh. Okay. Now Jim was on uneven footing. If Spock wasn’t here to meditate then what was he here for? They stood in awkward silence for a long moment, Jim waiting for Spock to say something and he was sure Spock was probably waiting for the same thing from Jim. Or he was calculating their current velocity based on the location of the nearby stars - it could be anything in between, you could never tell with Vulcans.

“Among my people,” Spock eventually began. “Emotions are considered abhorrent and it’s considered wise, even logical, to do all that one can to exercise oneself from their turbulence.”

...okay?

Spock continued. “At a young age we are taught how to utilize a form of control with meditation. Given that meditation has proven to be effective with humans as well as a stress reducer, would you like me to show you how to accomplish this?”

Oh. Spock was trying to be nice, Jim kind of felt like an asshole now. 

He wasn’t sure how to tell him that his grandma had taught him how to meditate when he was really young after the first time his hypersensitivity snuck up on him. Well, she tried to, anyway, but sitting and purposely _not thinking_ for any length of time was so excruciatingly dull that he had fidgeted his way through each session and they had never stuck.

“Oh, uh. No, that’s okay, Spock.” Spock’s face didn’t change, but for some reason Jim got the impression that he was disappointed. “My grandma tried to do the same for me when I was younger, but it’s hard for me to sit still so I always just ended up wiggling instead of ‘self-reflecting’.”

“I see.”

“I appreciate your offer, though,” Jim added when the silence between them stretched on for a little too long. “I just think that I’ll just end up trying your patience.” 

“Vulcans do not easily lose their patience, lieutenant.” 

“That’s never stopped me before,” Jim pointed out. Spock looked down in what Jim was damn near sure was amusement. Jim was tempted to try and get a better view of his face to verify his suspicions, but Spock had already looked back up before he got the chance.

“Then perhaps there is another technique for relaxation that may be more suitable to your needs.”

“Like what?”

“Astrology has been proven to be an effective method of stress reduction.” Spock gestured to the large observation window. “It is also a more passive version of meditation and Vulcans uninitiated with meditation are taught to clear their minds using the celestial spaces in the night sky.”

“Really?” Jim asked, interest piqued.

Spock inclined his head and walked closer until he was standing just a few feet away.

“How does that work?”

“Would you like me to show you?”

“I’m willing to try anything at this point,” Jim admitted. It was maybe a bit too honest, but Spock didn’t seem to mind and only gestured to a nearby chair.

“Then please sit and make yourself comfortable,” he instructed. Jim did as he was told.

“Now, close your eyes and visualize the stars outside the ship at this very moment.” Spock’s voice had a meditative quality to it that was already making Jim start to relax his shoulders and focus only on it rather than the madness outside. 

“Remind yourself of the four tenemants of the universe: Structure, logic, function, control. Remember that a structure cannot stand without a foundation, that logic is the foundation of function, and function is the essence of control...”

Jim let himself drift, allowing Spock’s voice to guide him. He imagined the stars the way he had seen them last. Gentle pinpricks of light in the sky…

“Remind yourself that you are in control…”

When Jim opened his eyes again the light in the room had changed. He was unsure of when he had fallen asleep, but the sleep had done wonders for him. He felt like a new man. He blinked the grogginess from his eyes and turned to find Spock sitting beside him, watching him speculatively. Jim smiled at him sleepily.

“Sorry, Spock. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“It is an understandable reaction given the amount of stress Dr. McCoy indicated you were suffering from.”

Jim frowned, now suddenly wide awake. “You talked to McCoy about me?”

“Not you, exactly.” At Jim’s displeased expression he hastened to continue. “I merely asked the doctor how much stress it would take to trigger a panic attack, I did not inform him who the question was regarding.”

“Oh.” Jim relaxed. “Did I at least get close to the end of the meditation?”

“No,” Spock replied flatly. Jim couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh, well. That still was probably the best meditation session I’ve ever had,” Jim admitted. Spock looked away, his face and neck suddenly a dark green.

“If I may ask, is the cause of your stress related to Acevedo’s recent demotion? Do you fear he will seek retribution?”

“Wait, he was demoted?”

Spock nodded. “Investigation of his previous conduct revealed other unethical breaches of conduct and it was determined that he would be demoted to lieutenant as a warning.”

Jim whistled in shock. “No, I hadn’t known that. Though why would he be after me for that? I didn’t have anything to do with his demotion.”

“Correct, but humans have been known to show lapses in rationality when angered, there is a chance he may blame you for his recent fall from grace given his behavior with you was the latest in his long line of unethical conduct.”

Well, when Spock put it like that…

“To be honest, I don’t know what’s causing the stress. It all just _started_. Bones probably thinks I just need a vacation, I guess.”

“I see.”

“How’s your investigation coming along by the way?”

Spock raised a brow. “To my knowledge, Lieutenant Uhura’s investigation has not yielded any new results.”

“I thought you were working with her,” Jim said, confused.

“Incorrect. Lieutenant Uhura came to me requiring my assistance with the construction of the tech you had originally led her to believe was real.”

Because he needed the reminder. 

“She informed me that she would handle the job from here and if she needed any further assistance she would contact me.” 

“She said she had suspicions of who was behind Hamish’s death, do you know who she thinks did it?”

Spock shook his head. “I do not. She wished to have more evidence before she made any accusations.”

That was a smart approach, Jim thought. At least this way it’d prevent anyone from knowing they were under suspicion.

Jim pushed himself out of the chair, Spock did the same to stand with him at the window. 

“Thank you for the help, Spock. I really needed it.”

“I only did what was necessary,” Spock replied and it was then that Jim suddenly realized Spock didn’t know how to deal with gratitude either. Jim had thought they had spent all that time fighting because they were too different, but in reality it was because they were the same.

What a pair of idiots they made, Jim thought with amusement. 

* * *

After that it was like the flood gates had opened. Suddenly Spock went from being practically non-existent to absolutely everywhere. Not that Jim was complaining, Spock actually turned out to be a lot more fun to chat with than Jim had originally credited him for. Of course he was smart, that was pretty standard given Spock was Vulcan, but he was funny too, in a dry, tongue-in-cheek kind of way that was easily missed if he wasn’t looking for it.

Days flew by and suddenly, two weeks later, Jim found himself looking forward to meeting up with Spock every night to meditate (read: fall asleep) or have a lengthy conversation about the stars. Seeing Spock quickly turned into the highlight of his day when all was said and done. It felt juvenile to even think it, but he even felt better whenever Spock was around. The horrible dreams had stopped and it was like all of Jim’s senses were ‘calming the fuck down’, as Bones liked to say.

Normally Jim would have thought it was odd how quickly he and Spock grew together, but it felt… natural. Like it was something that was meant to happen from the start and they had let their stubbornness get in the way.

Though Jim would be hard-pressed to ever admit that aloud considering Bones would have a field day with it and he probably would never be able to look Spock in the eye again. Though, come to think of it, Jim hadn’t seen Bones for a while… He’d have to pay him a visit to show the good doctor how much better he was feeling so he could get back to work. As much as he enjoyed Spock’s company, he was _bored_. 

The Enterprise wasn’t designed to be a pleasure cruise and was quickly running out of things for Jim to do.

“I’ll have your king in three moves,” Spock stated with a hint of pride in his voice.

Jim narrowed his eyes at the board.

“If I didn’t know better, Spock, I’d say you sounded overconfident.”

Spock raised a brow mockingly. “Then it is fortunate that you know better, lieutenant.”

Jim laughed. “Three moves, huh?”

“That is correct.”

Spock predicted an end to the game in three moves, but Jim got to watch his face fall in two with some clever maneuvering with his bishop.

“Check mate.”

For a short period of time, Jim could practically see Spock’s brain buffering the results of the game.

“That is… an unorthodox solution. You should have moved your knight next.”

Jim laughed again. “Where would the fun be in that?”

Spock gave him an unamused look and started resetting the board. Jim knew better than to point out that for an unemotional race, Spock was practically an open book.

“May I ask you a personal question, lieutenant?” Spock asked as he set up the pieces.

“Sure, why not.” 

“What reason did you have to lie about your hypersensitivity?

Jim shrugged, looking away. “Fear, I guess.”

When he looked back Spock was frowning speculatively. “It’s my understanding that humans are generally more accepting of other humans with exceptional abilities now that Esper Ratings are more widely used. Were you afraid of being treated differently or was it fear of violence?” 

“More like fear from habit.”

“I do not understand.”

Jim grabbed his rook and ran his fingers over the texture of the stone and mortar etched into its sides. “My family have always been really big on keeping it quiet.”

“They disapprove of it?”

Jim shook his head. “My grandma has the same thing, and I’m pretty sure my mom does too. I guess that’s just the way they’ve lived their entire life as well. ‘Don’t talk about it’. She always made it sound like something terrible would happen if I told anyone and after a while the thought stuck.”

“Do you believe she was correct to fear it?”

Jim sighed, putting his rook down. “I don’t know. Bones told me it’s a gene, so it feels strange to be afraid of it. More importantly, I think I’m tired of being afraid of it. I know my grandma wants the best for me, but if I listened to her I would have never left Iowa.”

“I understand,” Spock replied thoughtfully. “There is a similar thought process on Vulcan of not questioning what is believed and it has led to willful ignorance and isolation.”

“Yeah?”

Spock nodded. “Nero’s attempted destruction of the planet has only worsened their beliefs. I, too, would have never left home if I had not decided that it was necessary to forge my own path.”

“Is that why you chose to stay with Star Fleet?”

Spock regarded Jim with contemplation before finally speaking. “In part, yes. I was given advice to do what felt ‘right’ and decided that returning to Vulcan would not help assist my people. They do not need me there.”

Jim smiled. “Well, I’m glad you did. I wouldn’t have gotten to know you otherwise.”

  
  


Oddly enough, Spock’s face turned a light green. Jim blinked in surprise, he had noticed Spock doing that more often lately. Was it something Vulcans did occasionally? 

“Are you looking forward to seeing the planet of Drid?” Spock asked, changing the subject.

“Wait, are they still aboard?” Jim asked. “I thought they were supposed to leave after a week or so. Hasn’t it already been a few weeks?”

“Correct. According to Doctor McCoy, the ambassador’s wife requires more testing to determine what is continuing to ail her.”

Jim shook his head in disbelief. “That must be a new development, last I heard she just had a bad reaction to something she had eaten.”

Spock’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Indeed, it is troubling.”

“Does this mean we’re going to be taking a detour to drop them off?”

“Correct.” Spock moved his first piece.There was another long moment of comfortable silence before Jim asked,

“Has Uhura had anymore success finding out what happened to Hamish?” The dreams he’d had before and after Hamish’s death were like a distant memory now, but it still bothered him to not understand what even happened.

Spock nodded. “I spoke with her approximately 46.3 hours ago and she indicated to me that she had a prime suspect. She was in the process of collaborating with Captain Pike and the Head of Security to determine the next viable steps.”

“Does she think anyone else is in danger?” Jim asked worriedly.

“Based on her behavior and tone, I would estimate that she is unsure and that would explain why she wishes to keep the information quiet.”

“That makes sense.” 

They both fell silent for a long moment, the pieces of the game being moved around the board the only sound in the Observation room. Though, come to think of it, they could probably play in the Rec Room now. Jim hadn’t had a headache in days now. There weren’t any overwhelming sounds or lights or any of that. It was as if whatever had happened to cause his senses to go out of whack had completely disappeared.

Jim wondered what could have solved it. Was it the hypos, the meditation sessions with Spock, the fact that he had been forced to take a break from work or all of the above? He had done a bad job of treating it like a proper experiment and only doing one thing at a time. As it was, he had been too desperate to stop the urge to dig his fingers into his own skull in effort to release the pressure within that he couldn’t care less what he did as long as it worked.

“I should be returning to work soon,” Jim noted, breaking the comfortable silence. “So I don’t know if I’ll be available for our normal chess times.”

Spock nodded. “Then you have sufficiently recovered?”

“Yeah, I think so anyway. I’ll need to check in with sickbay to know for sure if I’m clear to go, but I feel so much better.” Jim smiled across the board. “Thank you for the help, Spock.”

Jim watched with fascination as another tint of green colored Spock’s face. “It is my understanding that Doctor McCoy had provided you with medication to help relieve your symptoms. It is highly unlikely that the meditation alone was the sole cause of your recovery.”

Jim swallowed a laugh, it was endearing to see Spock like this over a simple ‘thank you’.

“Maybe,” Jim agreed. “But I’m sure it did something and I appreciate the time you took to help me.”

Spock nodded then apparently decided to change the subject to a safer one. “Then considering your pending return to work, would you prefer to reschedule our usual games to another time?”

Jim nodded. “That’d be best. I’m not sure what shift I’ll be on yet so I’ll have to wait and see.”

“Understandable. I will await your reschedule request.”


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning Jim walked into sickbay with a skip in his step. He had slept like a baby the night before - no dreams whatsoever. Waking up that morning without having been jolted awake with fright even once during the night was a beautiful feeling that Jim had missed more than anything else.

Sickbay was bustling as usual. The robed guards were still situated right outside the room where the ambassador and his wife were staying. It was as if Sickbay was a time capsule, regardless of how much changed on the ship, coming into Sickbay always felt the same.

Behind the receptionist’s desk, Jim recognized Nurse Chapel as the receptionist who was unlucky enough to be tasked with fielding incoming requests from harried looking medical staff. Chapel had always been made of tougher stuff, though, and only coolly addressed each new person who addressed her.

She gave Jim a quick glance when he approached the desk before scrolling through her padd. “Are you here for an appointment?”

Jim shook his head. “No.”

A male nurse rushed up to the desk and grabbed the padd from Chapel’s outstretched hand before quickly walking back in the direction he came.

“A medical emergency?”

Again, he shook his head. “I need a clearance to return to work.”

She nodded then indicated to Jim that he needed to wait while she answered a page. After she had finished she beckoned Jim closer.

“Everyone’s busy right now, so you’ll most likely have a bit of a wait.”

“That’s alright,” Jim remarked. He was in a good enough mood that even being forced to sit around wasn’t enough to put a damper on his enthusiasm. “Am I okay to wait here?”

She nodded and waved him to the chairs in the lobby.

“Wait, Kirk,” she called before Jim could walk over to them. “Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah?” Jim went back to the desk and waited until Chapel was finished assisting the nurses that were running around. Once finished, she glanced around and beckoned him closer. 

“You’re friends with Dr. McCoy, right?” she asked, careful to keep her voice low. Jim nodded and she continued, “I was hoping you could talk to him.”

“What’s going on?”

Chapel pursed her lips. “I don’t know, but he hasn’t been acting like himself lately since the Drid ambassador and his wife arrived. I’m worried about him.”

Jim thought it over for a moment then nodded with a reassuring smile. “I’ll talk to him. He’s probably overworked.”

Chapel didn’t look convinced, but she gave him a nod regardless and Jim went to the lobby to sit down. Just what was happening aboard the ship anyway? Everything was going to hell and it felt like they were connected but he was somehow missing what was connecting it all together.

Fifteen minutes later, a very disheveled Bones emerged from the back hall and made a beeline straight for Jim.

“Jim, sorry for the wait. I got caught up.”

Jim pulled himself to his feet with a smile and shrugged. “That’s okay. To be honest, I didn’t expect to get the CMO himself during such a busy time. I must be important.”

Bones rolled his eyes in exasperation and cuffed Jim upside the head. “Shaddup.”

“Room Three is ready for you, doctor.”

“Thank you, nurse,” Bones replied gruffly before he grabbed Jim’s elbow and dragged him into the room. “There, now make yourself useful and get on the table.”

“Chapel is really impressive out there,” Jim commented as he did what he was told.

“Hmm,” Bones agreed. Like the last time Jim was there, Bones unslung his tricorder and immediately got to work taking Jim’s vitals. “If you ask me, she’s wasted as a receptionist, if I had my way she’d get a promotion and be making rounds.”

“Why isn’t she? Aren’t you the one in charge?”

Bones had an odd look on his face, the kind someone makes when there was something they were trying to think of but the thought was eluding him, leaving him with frustrating clues to its existence.

“It just wouldn’t work right now,” was the answer Bones finally gave.

“…Because you’re so busy right now?”

Again, there was that look.

“Bones?”

“Anyone ever tell you you ask too many questions?” Bones suddenly snapped with no hint of playfulness. Jim sat back in surprise. He remembered what Chapel had said earlier and he could definitely see it now - something was _wrong_. 

“Are you okay?”

Bones rubbed his face, clear frustration and exhaustion etched into every one of his features. “I’m sorry, Jim.I’m just having one of those weeks where even the tiniest thing is pissing me off. I don’t mean to snap at you, kid.”

“You’re not going to want to hear this, but II think it’s your turn to take a break, Bones.”

Bones made a wry face. “Easier said than done, Jim.” He let out a long sigh. “I’m up to here with nonsense-” He gestured above his head. “-between ‘his majesty’ always being around and Captain Pike deciding that now’s the time to put his food down to return to the planet of Drid.”

“I heard about that,” Jim commented. Bones scowled.

“I tried to tell Captain Pike that sending her back wouldn’t do any good considering she’s having problems with something aboard the ship, but he won’t listen to me! It’s bullshit!”

The anger in his voice was back, it was a fiery sound that did match the cold look in his eyes. In all the years Jim had known him, he had never, not once, seen Bones like this.

“I’m the CMO, my say should be final around medical issues! That damn captain...”

Jim frowned. “But wouldn’t it be better for her to get specialized care? What if she’s reacting to something that happened before she got on board?”

Bones’ face darkened as he opened his mouth to argue, but Jim pressed on in an attempt to get past the strange unease in the room. 

“Or what if whatever is happening is something common among the Drid and only a Drid specialist would recognize it?”

That seemed to get through to him. Bones deflated, the fight leaving him with a long exhale. “You’re right. I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately.”

“You’ve just been working too hard,” Jim consoled him. “Returning the ambassadors to their home planet will mean one less thing for you to worry about.”

Bones nodded dejectedly. 

“Besides,” Jim tried to inject some humor into his voice. “Look at the bright side, you won’t have to deal with her husband anymore.”

Bones rubbed his face.

“I wish that was the only problem, kid. Everything feels like it’s gone to hell here. No one can seem to do their job without me holding their damn hand, which is the last thing anyone needs right now with a bunch of murders going on.”

“Wait, murders? As in more than one?”

Bones nodded grimly. “Another body was found this morning.”

“Shit,” Jim ran a hand through his hair. “Do you think this one is related to Hamish’s murder?”

“I really don’t know yet. The newest death has similarities to the first one but… this one’s different.”

“What do you mean?”

“The body that was found today had a broken neck, but he also had blood coming from nearly orifice. It’s like his brain burst inside his skull. It’s disturbing.”

A chill ran down Jim’s spine. The first thought that had come to mind was of the sick man from Jim’s nightmares who had previously haunted him and was now mysteriously absent.

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know his name, some lieutenant commander something or other.”

Jim tried to think of what Acevedo looked like and match it to the man from his dream, but everything was vague now that he was awake. It was hard to picture now. 

“Were they found in a jefferies tube as well?”

“Yeah, some poor ensign found them this morning. What’s even weirder is, when Hamish first came in the physician on duty, Williams initially said that Hamish was nothing more than an accident, but then when I took a look at the body there were clear signs of a struggle. When I confronted him about it, he had no idea why he even said that.”

“Could he have been involved?”

Bones shook his head. “No, it’s like he was spacing out. I sent him back to his quarters to sleep, but when I asked Rovak to take a look, he said the exact same thing. Hell, at one point even I was starting to think it. I can’t explain it.”

“You’ve been working a lot,” Jim reasoned again. “It’s hard to think straight when you’re tired.”

“You’re probably right.” Bones sighed.

He fell silent for a long moment, absentmindedly staring at the screen of his tricorder.

“…Bones?”

Jim hesitated. “Can I tell you something?”

Bones eyed him tiredly. “What’s going on?”

Jim sighed. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“Try me.”

“I haven’t had any dreams lately, but before… when things were really bad… I think I was dreaming about Hamish and the lieutenant commander just as they died.”

“That’s crazy talk, Jim.”

“I know, but it’s true.”

Bones closed his eyes. “You wouldn’t be dreaming of them unless you had a hand in killing them,” he joked suddenly, his voice waspish. His words made Jim feel sick - they were too close to something Jim had thought himself but shied away from in horror. 

Jim’s eyes widened. “Bones?”

Bones huffed a laugh and opened his eyes. “I think you’re right, I do need a nap. I haven’t slept well in the past few days and I’m not making any sense.”

Jim said nothing.

“But before I do that, let’s take care of you,” Bones declared. He looked back down at his padd and scrolled through what must have been the biometric readings from the last week. “I like the fact that your stress levels have gone down. Did the hypos help?”

“I think so,” Jim replied uncertainly. There was an odd feeling in his chest that told him something was very wrong with Bones and that Jim needed to be careful. “I was pretty desperate to make it stop so I tried pretty much anything.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what? Hopefully nothing that included getting massively drunk.”

Jim shrugged “I considered it, but no. I spent a lot of time to myself and Spock helped me meditate.”

“Spock?” Bones exclaimed distastefully. “Are we thinking about the same Spock here? Tall, pointy eared, lives to darken doorways? Bane of my existence? That Spock?”

“Hey, come on, lay off. He’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad-!” Bones put his tricorder down on the table.

“I’ve just had time to talk with him, that’s all. He’s still very much a stick in the mud, but he’s a pretty great guy once you get to know him.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

A deaf man could hear the venomous sarcasm dripping from Bones’ voice.

“What’s your problem with him, anyway? I thought you were fine with him before.”

At least Bones had been a few weeks prior when he had teased Jim about being flustered around the Vulcan. Now, though, it was like Bones couldn’t stand him at all. 

The angry look came back and Jim could see the doctor tighten his grip on his tricorder.

“He’s just _irritating_. Him and that Lieutenant Uhuru something or other-”

“Uhura,” Jim corrected.

“Whatever, him and _Uhura_ keep coming around here, asking questions and getting in my way. It’s damn irritating.” He trailed off, muttering something under his breath that vaguely sounded like ‘Chapel’.

Considering Pike’s concern for the ambassadors’ wellbeing, Jim had a good idea what Spock might have been asking, but what could have Uhura been after? Did she think somehow that Hamish’s death had something to do with one of the staff in the sickbay? Or was she there on unrelated business? And what did Chapel have anything to do with it?

“Bones-”

“What?!” he snapped.

Jim held up his hands. “I seriously think you need a break. You don’t realize it right now, but you’re getting angry over really small things that normally wouldn’t bother you before. It’s not like you. Everyone is worried about you.”

Bones glared at him for a long moment then, like before, seemed to come to his senses. He shook his head, face crumpling in confused exhaustion.

“I think you’re right, Jim. I don’t feel right.” His voice even sounded strange, like it had been stretched too thin and was worn down from it all. 

Suddenly a strange feeling of anxious dread came over Jim that he couldn’t shake. It felt like Bones was far away and this would be the last time he was going to ever get to see him. Irrationally, Jim wanted to reach out and hug the cantankerous idiot and tell him to _stay here_ , but he held himself back. It was a stupid feeling to have, Bones was tired, he wasn’t _dying_ , for heaven’s sake. Bones would laugh at him if he told him what he was thinking right now.

Jim shifted uncomfortably on the table, folding and unfolding his hands.

Jim feigned a smile. “So, am I free to go back to work?”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re good to go. Just promise me you’ll avoid going anywhere near the jeffries alone. I don’t know what’s going on, but things around here are going to get a lot more hectic if this newest death isn’t ruled as an accident.”

“I’ll be careful, don’t worry.”

* * *

  
  


That night he had another nightmare, the first one in a while. It was worse than all the other nights, more frantic and desperate. 

In it, Jim was thirteen again and he’s with his friends - his old friends he knew when he was still living with his Aunt and Uncle on Tarsus IV. They’re being hunted by the Governor’s men and don’t know what to do, so they decided to go down into the old worker tunnels that spider-webbed beneath the colony in hopes to shake them. 

Yet that’s where they’re caught, there in that dark place. Only suddenly, Bones was there too, holding him down and forcing him to watch his friends’ execution with his heart in his throat. When it was all over, he looked down at him with a careless little shrug as if to say, _oops!_

Somehow, he just managed to get away, but as he’s fumbling to make it through the inky black tunnels he heard it - there was something behind him. It couldn’t grab him just yet, but it was coming. He wouldn’t escape it this time.

Then, just like all his other dreams, suddenly he was somewhere else and Nero was in front of him with a too-wide smile. 

“This is perfect,” he was saying to Jim. “You will make sure that you hack the Federation and send the distress call.”

That was easy, everyone would be distracted by the Kobayashi Maru to notice he had done anything else. 

“Good,” Nero praised. Jim turned around to find Spock watching him.

When Jim woke up, he was in front of his mirror, blood running down his chin from his nose and now from his eyes as well. He swayed in place struggling to remember when he had gotten out of bed. 

He couldn’t. 

Jim clung to the sink and threw up. 

* * *

Waking up the next morning was absolutely brutal. Everything hurt, his bones in his skin, his own skin itself, a loud ringing sound that filled his head.It felt like he was wearing his own skin like a strange suit and it sat heavy on his bones and sinew which both ached.

He didn’t want to move. This was worse than anything he had ever experienced in the last few weeks. He couldn’t even lift his head from his blankets without a sharp stab of pain from the light.

The only light in the room was from the guide lights on the floor. The guide lights were the faintest lights anyone could possibly find, their sole purpose was to help him stumble to the bathroom without waking him up. Yet now even those were light high beams being shone directly into his eyes.

After groaning to himself for a while, Jim finally decided that the pain wasn’t going to go away on his own so he needed to do something. Blindly, he reached out and felt for the hypos he had left on his bedside table. He hadn’t needed to use it for a while, but he had left a few of them there in paranoia - he was grateful now that he did. He didn’t think he could manage to get out of bed right now.

He made a noise of pained relief as his hand closed on one of the hypos. Jim dragged his hand back under the covers with the hypo in tow and gave himself the dose. 

Only ten minutes later, it wasn’t working the way it should have been. He was sure he waited long enough. Even if the seconds felt like they dragged on for centuries, he was sure he waited the normal amount of time it took for the hypo to work.

It should have been immediate. Why wasn’t it working? Why did everything feel so much worse? Now he could hear a strange rattle that filled the entire room.

Sick panic sat heavy in his gut as he struggled to think of what to do. Should he call Bones? Or Spock?

Spock’s face from the dream from the night before made him suddenly feel ill. No, he couldn’t look at him right now.

“Computer, call grandma,” Jim groaned miserably

“ _Calling Delilah Kirk._ ”

“Jim!” his grandma answered happily, her voice booming through the room. He could hear the moment she saw him with the change in her voice. “Jim? What’s going on?” 

“I don’t feel so good,” Jim groaned out. His stomach twisted unpleasantly as he moved his head to speak. “Grandma, please help me.”

“Can you tell me what’s happening?”

“Everything and it’s awful. _Oh god_...” His teeth were throbbing in time with his words and it took him a moment to realize he was feeling his teeth vibrate from his own voice.

“Okay,” Grandma muttered worriedly, Jim flinched from the sound then abruptly she fell silent.

“Jim?” A gruff voice asked. It was a man, but Jim couldn’t place who.

_No, no, no. Shut up_ , Jim thought desperately. If he could he’d claw his way into the mattress pad and hide inside to muffle the sound. He imagined it was soft and dark and quiet in there, it would be perfect.

“It’s okay, Jim. Just breathe,” the gruff voice instructed him. “Just breathe…”

Jim sucked in a shaky breath.

“That’s right, just like that. Now exhale.”

“Grandpa?” Jim asked after a long moment. He looked up to find a holo image of his grandparents, both watching him with concern. Both of them looked harried and worn. He wondered how long they had spent trying to talk him through this bout of panic.

“Right here, Jim. Concentrate on my voice.”

“Grandpa, what’s happening? Everything is… everything is in my head. I can’t-” Jim dug his fingernails into his forehead. He could hear the almost inaudible hum of the holo. “I _can’t_ -”

“Jim.” Grandpa commanded firmly. “Right now you are out there, but you need to bring yourself back here. Think of something that anchors you.”

Jim thought of the gentle light of stars, of cool glass against his cheek, of the curved shape of a rook under his fingers and Spock’s voice gently rising and falling as he told him about the constellations.

Jim inhaled raggedly and opened his eyes. He couldn’t remember closing them.

“Grandma? Grandpa?”

“How do you feel, Jim?” Grandma asked.

Jim paused for a moment, waiting experimentally. Everything was quiet again. Jim could cry in relief from it all.

“What happened?”

“You called me having a panic attack, Jim. What’s going on? Are you alright?”

Jim looked away in shame and decided it was time to tell them everything that had been happening, starting from the day he had returned to Earth. He should have done it right away, but… 

“Why didn’t you call me when this all started?” she asked.

“I was scared,” Jim admitted. “It took me so long to get out of Iowa, I didn’t want to come back.”

Grandma sighed. “Jim…”

He felt all of 15 again.

“It wasn’t because of you or grandpa,” Jim replied quickly. It was just that damn place. There was nothing there but shipyards and bars. He would die there if he had to go back.

“I know, Jim,” Grandma said, but she still looked sad. “I’m sorry I made you stay here for so long. I knew you wanted to leave for years, but I was scared, too.”

“That someone would find out?” Jim offered. Grandma shook her head, then stopped to consider it.

“It’s not that simple, Jim. Of course I was scared someone would hurt you, but more than anything I was afraid something like this would happen and her grandpa or I wouldn’t be able to stop it.”

“It didn’t start getting out of control until a few weeks ago. And this is the first time it’s ever been this severe.” Jim looked at her imploringly. “What’s going on, grandma? What’s happening to me?”

“What happens to everyone in our bloodline who has this gift - it’s waking up. It’s growing stronger.”

“How do I control it?” Jim asked desperately. He had to do something, he’d never be able to stay in Star Fleet the way he was now. 

“You need to find your Guide,” she instructed. “You need to find someone who completes you and calms you.”

“I… how do I do that? Is there a ritual I do or something? A support group I go to?”

She looked troubled. “You should have already met them, Jim.”

“But I haven’t!” he insisted. 

“Think,” Grandma stressed. “You said that your attacks have been happening for the last few weeks but have never been this bad. Is it possible it was because your Guide was with you during your other ones and prevented them from getting worse?”

“No-” 

Jim froze in horror, his heart in his throat as he realized the truth. No, that was wrong. Spock had been with him during his other attacks, but at the time Jim had mistakenly credited his recovery to the hypos Bones had given him and didn’t make the connection. Jim wordlessly opened and closed his mouth. 

“You _have_ ,” Grandma sounded relieved. “That’s wonderful!” 

“What does that mean?”

“It means you need to bond with them. They can help you control your attacks when they come.”

Jim choked. “ _Bond?!_ That’s insane! I talked with a doctor who studied this, grandma, this is just a part of the genetic sequence, not some mystical decree! Getting married to some guy I’ve known for all of a month isn’t going to change anything.”

“You still don’t get it,” Grandma groused. She was beginning to lose her patience with him. “This isn’t just genetic, it’s in the soul. It’s who we are. Me, your mother - we both went through this already. Your grandpa is my Guide and your father was your mother’s. That’s just how it is.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! There must have been something else you did that helped you.”

Jim could feel his heart beat ratcheting up as his grandma replied.

“Jim, _for once_ , just listen to me. If some know-nothing doctor wants to claim there’s some genetic component then so be it. That changes nothing about what I’ve said. Without a Guide your attacks will get worse and controlling them will be as difficult as crossing the ocean in a canoe.”

“I’ve got to go, grandma.”

“Jim!”

Jim cut the connection before she could say anything else.

* * *

  
  


The next few days passed in a blur. He ate, he slept, he attended to his shift and then he went back to his quarters.

There were two comms from Spock on his padd now, but now Jim wasn’t even sure if he could read them, let alone open them. How was he supposed to explain any of this to Spock?

…Should he even explain any of this to Spock?

It was all out of left field. They had just barely started becoming friends and now Jim had to turn to him and say that the only reason why Jim was feeling better was because of some mystical lines of fate crap that decreed that Spock had to bonded to him until Jim died.

What kind of life was that? How would Spock ever agree to that?

Or worse, how could Spock refuse?

That was the most chilling thought, that Spock would be forced to accept with Jim's sanity on the line. Jim couldn’t do that to him, but he couldn’t think of how to bring up the subject in a way that would prevent that from happening.

But even more horrifying were the dreams he kept having. The ones where he was helping Nero like Acevedo had accused him of doing, or the ones where he was killing people and dragging them into dark corners. 

Because he liked it. 

That wasn’t him, it wasn’t. 

Except he remembered Tarsus IV and the feeling he got when he buried those people alive, how he had ignored their outstretched hands and-

_No!_ He had never wanted to do that! He didn’t mean to. He hadn’t understood. He had just been following orders. 

More and more frequently, he’d find himself waking up somewhere far away from his bed and every time was more terrifying than the last. Something was wrong with him, but he was struggling to remember _what_. 

What if he _had_ done all those terrible things and just… couldn’t remember? 

“Spock’s been looking for you,” Bones told him in his office after Jim decided it was time to go to him for help. Except Bones had completely ignored what Jim was saying and was talking about Spock. “He’s stopped by here a few times asking for you.”

“Bones. Forget Spock for right now,” Jim begged miserably, he was surprised to find himself crying. “I need your help. There’s something going on with me. I’m having these dreams and they don’t make sense. I didn’t do these things, but I remember them.”

Bones rolled his eyes. He looked worse that he usually did, there were deep shadows under his eyes..

“I told him I hadn’t seen you,” Bones continued blithely. “It would be nice if you didn’t have me smack dab in the middle of your high school romance. You need to talk to him yourself.”

“Bones…!” 

“It doesn’t matter- ah-” Bones grabbed his head.

“Bones?” Jim reached forward in surprise. “Bones, what’s going on?”

“…Nothing.” Bones replied, but there was something strange about his face. It made Jim’s hackles go up. He had to be imagining things. “I just remembered why I asked you here, is all.”

Jim stepped away in fright. Bones hadn’t asked him to show up, Jim had done that on his own. Bones paused, an oddly frightening pause that sent shivers down Jim’s back before-

“Jim, there was a favor I wanted to ask.” There was blood dripping down from Bones’ nose that the other man didn’t seem to notice - he was too busy giving Jim that unnerving stare.

“Bones, your nose is bleeding.”

Suddenly, without warning, Bones’ face twisted in rage. He grabbed Jim by the front of his uniform and slammed him into the wall. _Hard_. Jim gasped as the air was driven from his lungs and Bones did it again.

“Tell them the truth!” Bones snarled nonsensically. “I know what you did! Tell them!”

“Bones,” Jim rasped, struggling to get Bones to let him go. “Bones, what are you talking about?!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw movement from the entrance of the room. Someone to help him, he realized frantically. Except, it was the Drid ambassador and Jim would bet everything he was not there to help. The Drid was calmly watching the scene unfold as he approached.

“He’ll make you see,” Bones was rambling. He had stopped slamming Jim back into the wall, but he hadn’t removed his grip and more blood was starting to run down his face - from his eyes, his nose, his ears. “He’ll make you see!”

_Sorry, Bones_ , Jim thought and he kicked hard at the doctor’s knee. The wild eyed doctor stumbled just enough for Jim to push himself off the wall. As if just realizing Jim could still escape, the ambassador lunged towards the both of them and grabbed Jim’s neck with a bruising force that made Jim scream in pain.

There was a distant shout and then everything went silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 
> 
> [Marlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlinspirkhall/pseuds/Marlinspirkhall), my beta for this fic, was super awesome and created fanart and I really wanted to include it but I wasn't sure where. So I figured at the end of this chapter is best because it doesn't spoil anything. This is also linked in the prologue in the chapter's notes along with [art](https://punkspockispunkrock.tumblr.com/post/621036245871689728/my-piece-for-the-thyla-big-bang-i-collaborated) from [punkspockispunkrock](https://punkspockispunkrock.tumblr.com) who was paired up with me for the t'hy'la bang! :D THANK YOU AGAIN TO BOTH OF YOU! 


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing that came back to him was sound. In some distant room Jim could hear someone yelling, though what they were saying was a bit too muffled to make out the words. It was a strange mixture of  _ quiet-loud _ -silence that made his head hurt.

Groggily, Jim shifted his head, trying to understand what was happening.

Almost immediately, memories of being attacked came flooding back. Memories off the Drid ambassador coming for him while Bones…

_ Bones! _

Jim snapped awake. What happened to Bones?! The ambassador had done something to him. His eyes before the ambassador attacked, the headache and then the blood… Bones had told him that he hadn’t been sleeping well and that he had been having headaches, but Jim had been so busy with himself that he’d never thought anything of it.

_ Stupid, stupid _ , Jim thought as he struggled to get out of bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Jim snapped his head in the direction of the sound. Sure enough, in the very next bed was one cantankerous doctor looking worse for wear but otherwise in one piece.

“Bones!” He fell back against his pillows as his strength gave up on him. “Bones, are you okay?! What happened?!”

“Keep it down,” Bones grumbled slowly. “I feel like I’ve been on a three day bender. I’m too old for this shit.”

“Sorry,” Jim lowered his voice. “What happened? The last thing I remember…”

Bones nodded wearily. “I’m sorry, Jim. I don’t know what happened. It was like a voice in my head telling me what to do.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jim replied firmly. He paused and peered closely at his friend, he still looked awful… Bones closed his eyes and for a long moment Jim was sure he must have fallen asleep, but then he opened his eyes again and shook his head sluggishly.

“I knew something was going on, Jim. I kept having those headaches, I should have been able to connect the dots and figure out that they weren’t normal. I should have known and instead I helped him attack you.”

Jim frowned. “What did he want from me anyway?”

“You don’t know?”

Jim shook his head. The distant yelling had stopped and in its place was an eerie, thick silence. The kind that horror vids used to build up tension and hint at the presence of a monster lurking just down the hall. It made the hair on Jim’s neck stand up.

Suddenly Jim found himself glancing at the door in paranoia.

“No. Do you remember what he was telling you when he took control of you?”

Bones frowned, deep in though then nodded.

“He wants you to confess.”

A chill ran down Jim’s spine. “Confess? Confess what?”

_ You know what _ , came the insidious thought. 

Bones shrugged. “He just said ‘tell them you did it.’ I’m sure you know what you did.”

Then just like that, Bones sagged tiredly against his pillows.

“Let’s talk later, okay? I’m kinda tired.”

* * *

The feeling of paranoia slowly grew worse. Over the course of a day it went from the idea that there was something in the hallway to the absolute  _ certainty _ that someone or something was out there. He imagined that there was someone standing outside his door, waiting. Every now and again he’d hear whispers - insidious whispers that spilled in under the door like a noxious gas.

His heart beat wildly at the thought of it getting in. By the times Bones had recovered enough to check himself out he had completely abandoned his pride and frantically begged Bones to lock the door to his room.

“Jim, whatever you’re hearing it’s not real,” Bones told him, at some point. “Nothing will get in if I unlock the door. Whatever the ambassador did to you is playing tricks on you, you just have to stay strong and fight it.”

__

That was easier said than done. Bones wasn’t listening to whatever was just outside his door. He wasn’t listening as it slowly grew louder and louder and  _ louder,  _ whispering incomprehensible words that compelled him to believe in their meaning even if he couldn’t understand what was being said.

“Just don’t let it in,” Jim had replied to Bones. “Keep the door locked.”

Bones had just looked at him with a mixture of worry and pity that made Jim feel ashamed, but ultimately Bones had listened. The door stayed locked. Only Bones was allowed to come inside to take biometric readings and administer medications to help Jim relax and sleep.

Or try to.

The presence just outside the door got stronger whenever Jim slept, or maybe it just got easier to hear when Jim wasn’t able to do his damnedest to block out the sound. Who knew what was really happening or what it all meant. Who knew?

Jim didn’t.

“Jim, if there was something outside the door, wouldn’t I see it whenever I come and go from the room?” Bones had tried to reason at one point. That had made Jim doubt everything for a wild moment, doubt which the  _ thing _ outside the door seized on with sickening vigor. The whispers had become louder, inky black shadows had pried at the door, slowly inching it open like sharp fingers scrambling to get inside. 

“How do you not see it?” Jim gasped with panic. “It’s right there!”

But then before Bones could turn to look the fingers had snapped back as if they had been burned and disappeared. Bones had eyed the door for a long moment while Jim had struggled to breathe.

_ Calm down _ .

“Jim…” Bones had begun, gently. He had turned back towards Jim with a soothing expression on his face like Jim was some spooked animal. “Whatever you saw  _ wasn’t real _ .”

Jim wasn’t having it that time, he just shook his head and flinched back when Bones had moved to give Jim a sedative. Bones had only looked back at him in disappointment and left.

That had been a few days ago. Or a few hours ago. Or minutes. He couldn’t keep track as the attacks worsened.

It had gone from whispers at the door to inky shadows that Jim could see just beneath the locked entrance that probed inside for weakness before flinching back out. With each new effort it was a little further inside and he’d catch himself wondering just what was the point of fighting back? It was going to win.

He should just let it in.

Then he’d realize what he was thinking and recoil from the thought in horror and the shadows would retreat once more.

Then came the smell - the smell of a strangely sweet rot that made Jim hungry even as he choked and fought to breathe through his nose to avoid getting the taste in his mouth. It was a smell that made him think of long rows of corpses and of the sick begging him for help even as he buried them alive.

This was the most effective strategy yet and Jim knew it. Whatever was outside worked to get in even as it was working to smoke Jim out. It was hoping to wear him down until he was just too sick and tired to fight back and then it would be inside.

This is what made Jim realize that Bones was right, it was in his head.

Not the whole thing, but enough of it.

There was something outside the door and it was listening in enough to know what tactics to try next and how to use them. Bones couldn’t see it because the ambassador must have been still inside his head. He had to be still there just enough to make Bones believe what he wanted Bones to think, but not enough for Bones to realize what was happening. Or maybe he was still entirely in control and Bones wouldn’t even think to question it.

Could the Drid do that? Were they strong enough for that?

“I’m not going to give up on this,” Bones had said firmly at one pount, Jim couldn’t remember when. All he could remember was that he had to struggle not to kick him and scream at the doctor.

_ Get away from me, get away from me, getAWAYFROMME. _

Instead, Jim had gripped the sheets and managed to shakily ask,

“Can you find Spock for me?”

“Spock? Why Spock?” Bones had questioned.

“I just… I need him. Can you get him?”

Bones had shook his head. “I haven’t seen the hobgoblin anywhere since that bastard] attacked you. I can look for him.”

Jim was an idiot to ask a clearly compromised Bones. Maybe he had thought then that there was a chance Bones was still inside and could help, but it was soon made clear that this was not the case.

“Have you found him?” Jim always asked now whenever Bones stopped by. Bones always shook his head with the same answer,  _ no _ .

By the fourth time Bones snapped in exasperation.

“Jim, you have to give me time! I’m doing my best here!”

“You just don’t want to find him,” Jim accused furiously.

“Dr. Rovak did neural scans on me,” Bones replied, suddenly much more carefully - much more soothing. It was that spooked animal voice again. Jim wanted to reach over and tear into Bones’ face until he could get inside and rip out whatever that Drid bastard had done to his best friend.

“All traces of the Drid ambassador are gone, Jim.” Bones knocked on his own forehead with careful playfulness. “Nothing up there but me.”

“Stop it, just  _ stop it _ !” Jim howled and covered his ears, but even he couldn’t tell what he was yelling at. Was it whatever was pretending to be Bones? Was the voice outside?

He just didn’t know.

He bitterly fought against his own powerlessness. Trapped in that bed, in that room.

If only he could find a way out, he could find Spock. Spock had helped him control his senses before, Jim was sure Spock could do it again. He could help him block out what was happening and then maybe they could find a way to get rid of what was outside his room for good.

Then they could help Bones get free.

Once they did that, they could find the ambassador Jim would get the chance to enjoy slowly crushing his neck underneath his boot. In his calmer moments he liked to imagine the panic that the ambassador would be feeling as he slowly suffocated and Jim would tell him,  _ this is what it feels like. _

But first he had to find Spock. He had to find a way  _ out _ .

Then suddenly, the attacks stopped. 

Everything stopped.

The whispers, the scrambling at the door, the smell - all of it. It just…  _ stopped _ . It was as if it had given up entirely, a hopeful thought that Jim was reluctant to buy into lest he was proven wrong by its return.

That’s what Jim would do if he was trying to psychologically torture someone, Jim reasoned to himself. If he was trying to wear someone down the most effective way would be to emotionally compromise them and then stop, but only for a short while. Only long enough to make them think it was done and then when they started to feel safe he’d come back and start again.

Nothing could possibly be more demoralizing than the realization that it was never going to stop.

Yet it didn’t come back. 

He fought sleep as long as he could, but eventually the lack of it would take his toll. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been fighting not to sleep, desperately afraid that eventually he’d let his guard down one time too many.

Jim’s eyes snapped open and he scanned the room with fright until he realized with a jolt that he didn’t know what he was looking for.

_ It’s okay _ , he told himself.  _ It’s okay _ .

His heart beat wildly, his body shaking uncontrollably as he took a long moment to calm down. The walls moved with his panic, so he shut his eyes to block it out. They had snapped back into place when he opened them again and stayed as walls should - unmoving.

  
  


* * *

“What happened to me?” Jim asked Bones later. 

Bones shrugged. “The working theory was that the Drid ambassador psychically left something in your head when Spock pulled you two apart. It was harmless on its own, best I can tell, but your brain knew it didn’t belong there. So like any good immune system, so it treated the foreign object like a threat and went into overdrive to get rid of it.”

Jim rubbed his eyes. “So that whole thing was, what, like a fever?”

“A psychic fever,” Bones confirmed, grinning at the phrase. “We decided the best thing to do was wait it out and manage your symptoms as best as possible.”

Jim let his head fall back against his pillow, but then snapped it back up.

“Wait, Spock?!”

“Yeah, that’s how we figured out what was going on to begin with. He peeked into that head of yours and found the problem. Gotta say, it was a bit weird to watch, he was like a psychic mechanic.”

“Is he still here?”

Bones shook his head. “Sorry, Jim, he took off soon after.”

Jim tried not to let his disappointment show, but something of it must have been on his face because Bones gave him a look.

“I don’t think he saw any psychic dirt inside that cesspool you got there,” Bones joked. “So I wouldn’t worry about him seeing the skeletons in your closet.”

All Jim could think of was the dream he had of Nero and the smile on his face when he ordered Jim to prime the fake distress call. What would Spock say? 

He wouldn’t say anything, he told himself, because it  _ wasn’t real _ .

* * *

  
  


In all of a few hours Jim’s miraculous recover was quickly replaced with the realization that his problems with his senses, his  _ Sentinel abilities _ , had come back with a vengeance. He had no way to confirm it, but he was pretty sure they were even stronger now and much more erratic.

It was not unlike receiving a comm signal that was being transmitted through a solar flare. Occasionally, when the flare was waning and the solar radiation was at its weakest, the signal would grow stronger and he’d be able to make out entire words at an ungodly volume to compensate for the interference. Yet as the solar radiation would begin to grow again the signal would inevitably once again be filled with static and garbage noise.

It was exactly like that - every now and then he’d hear talking, laughing, or groans of pain and the volume would be unbearable. It was not unlike being in a room filled to the brim with a crowd of people and everyone was talking at once. During those moments his skin would prickle uncomfortably and, even when he was up and about, he’d feel the phantom sensation of blankets against his skin or a pillow behind his head. It was disorienting. Whenever he closed his eyes he had the unsettling feeling of the pull of gravity at his feet while simultaneously experiencing it lying down. It was as if the room was shifting or the internal gravity sensors were malfunctioning and both the wall  _ and  _ floor were the new anchor points at the same time.

It made it hard to think.

Other times, the sensations would disappear entirely and the feeling of being alone in his own body would leave him reeling.

* * *

  
  
Lady Ambassador Aeldo met him in the hallway outside his room in the infirmary as he was leaving one final blessed time. He heard her before anything else, though if asked he didn’t think he’d be able to explain exactly what he heard.

A footfall? A breath of air? The rustling of fabric?

Whatever it was, the similarities of someone standing outside his door as he busied himself inside was too much and Jim suddenly, wildly wanted to lunge for the door and lock it before anything could get in. Only the chime jolted him back to reality, leaving him wide eyed and shaking with adrenaline.

She looked a mess. Jim had never met her before, not that he could recall, but he got the impression that she was someone who was always meticulously dressed and well groomed. Now, though, her hospital gown looked as if it’d been thrown on haphazardly, her hair was in complete disarray and her naturally deep blue face was a now sickly, pallid hue. It looked as if she had been put through the wringer.

She was in shock, Jim realized. It couldn’t have been easy to come to terms with everything that had happened recently. First she had fallen ill only then to find out her husband had attacked not one, but two Star Fleet officers in the course of a week.

Should she even be out of bed?

“May I come in?” Aeldo asked. Her voice sounded as worn as she looked.

He hesitated. He felt terrible for her, he really did, but the smell of her perfume was starting to get to him and that small, irrational part of him that lost its mind whenever even Bones walked into the room was now screaming.

_ It’s not your room anymore _ , he tried to tell himself, but it did little good.

Her face fell when he didn’t immediately reply.

“It’s alright, I understand if you don’t trust me.” She gave him a tired smile and, as if that wasn’t enough to make Jim feel like a complete ass, she added, “I only wanted to apologize for… for what my husband has done.”

She paused and Jim got the impression she was still waiting to let her come inside despite her reassurances. He shifted uncomfortably to block the entrance with his body.

_ You’re being stupid _ , he told himself angrily.  _ Let her in _ .

“Thank you for your kindness, lady ambassador,” was what Jim said instead. “But it’s not your fault. You didn’t do any of this.”

“Yes…” She stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment. “I couldn’t help but overhear you talking to your dear doctor about someone named ‘Spock’.”

“Ah… uh. Yeah. It’s complicated.”

She moved forward, attempting to edge by. She looked absolutely beat, the poor woman probably just wanted to sit down. Jim’s conviction wavered uncertainly.

“Oh, but I was awake when he came by earlier. He was very worried for you.”

Jim frowned, momentarily distracted. “He was?”

She gave him a smile tinged with exhaustion. “Oh yes, I’d even say-”

She stopped and turned abruptly to look down the hall with surprise, suddenly looking more alert and energetic than she had for their entire conversation.

“Lady Aeldo? What is it?”

He followed her gaze down the hall, only to find nothing there. When he looked back, she was gone.

* * *

The Enterprise reached Archimedes Station the day before Easter. Coincidentally, it just so happened to be the day Bones had thrown up his hands and been forced to release Jim from the infirmary after a seventh day in a row of no explanation of what was happening now. Jim would have considered it an Easter miracle, but his freedom came with so many strings attached that Bones might as well have turned Jim’s quarters into a sick bay away from the sick bay.

So, instead of celebrating, Jim had spent the day holed up in his quarters, reprogramming his replicator to bypass the frankly terrible dietary restrictions Bones had added to Jim’s food card and feeling sorry about himself. Spock hadn’t bothered to try and reach out to him since whatever happened in the infirmary - so, what, did Spock see something when he peeked into Jim’s head and couldn’t stand to be around him now?

What was he supposed to do with that information? How was he supposed to approach Spock at all now?

It was then that a message pinged on his padd with the subject line  **ETAT PRIORITE - Continued Service Agreement** glowing up at him from the newly awakened screen.

If his only options for fighting the slow mental degradation were to hunt down Spock, a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with him, or return to grandparents in Iowa… Well, then he didn’t have much of a choice, now did he?

Jim stared down at the screen, the padd held loosely in his hands.

* * *

  
  


Then just like that, before he even knew it, Jim was back at his mom’s old place in Iowa and nothing made sense. The doors kept rattling to  _ let it in _ and the wind outside kept howling like some deranged animal, but inside it was silent like the grave. 

He couldn’t think. All he could think about was blood. 

The quiet weighed on him, pressing down on his shoulders, wrapping its long fingers around his chest and squeezing until Jim could barely get a breath in. 

He didn’t know what to do.

“What are you doing here, Spock?”

“Doctor McCoy-” Spock started.

“No,” Jim interrupted. He pushed himself up in his chair to fix Spock with a look. “Why are you here? Didn’t the Enterprise leave for Deep Space already?”

He wasn’t playing around here. Spock should have been out there on the Enterprise, not here with him. What was he doing?

Spock’s face suddenly blanked in a way that Jim now associated with ‘Spock is hiding something’, which in easy, human terms meant guilt.

Jim glared at him. 

“Spock, what did you do?”

Spock drew himself up for a brief moment then came to a conclusion.

“Jim, you need to wake up, this isn’t real.”

Jim’s heart rate increased. 

“Spock, what are you talking about?”

A pause, then, “Jim, I did not leave the Enterprise and neither did you.”

Jim could practically feel the wheels turning inside his head.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about…”

Spock took a step towards him, Jim just paced away from him anxiously.

“How did you arrive here?” Spock asked, changing tactics. 

“What? Here, as in Iowa?”

Spock inclined his head.

“I… That’s…” Jim frowned and looked around the kitchen as if he’d somehow find the answer just lying out on a countertop. Even the slightest distance from Spock made his eyes begin to act up again, the room seem to shift, shrinking in size and closing in on him.

“I don’t remember…”

“What happened before you arrived here?” Spock continued to press. 

“I gave Pike my resignation,” Jim replied. He was confident of that at least. 

“How long ago did this occur, do you recall?”

He… he couldn’t. It felt like yesterday, but it could have been weeks ago. All he could remember was that singular moment when Pike looked at him with that look of disappointment and asked,  _ Are you sure about this, Jim? _

“You can’t remember because it didn’t happen,” Spock interjected, taking pity on him. “You are currently in a dream.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jim denied, but a niggling thought in the back of his head couldn’t let go of the fact that Spock wasn’t the type to play games, but… if this was a dream, who was to say Spock was even real? 

No, this was ridiculous. 

“Jim, you’ve been asleep for 12.8 hours since your mind was assaulted by the ambassador from Drid in Doctor McCoy’s office.”

“That’s not possible. I’ve been awake for a week. Bones was there when I woke up.”

Spock followed him when he moved away this time and grabbed his wrist. Suddenly it was as Spock as awash in color and the world around them fell away to a dismal gray. Jim’s eyes widened.

“Spock-” He looked around them, stunned. “How?”

“I tried to reach you earlier,” Spock admitted. “But the ambassador would not reveal what he did to you. I determined that it was likely that your unique physiology combined with his attack created a perfect storm and is what is keeping you suspended in your own mind.”

“I don’t understand.” He sounded like a broken record. “Why would he do this? What could he possibly want from me?”

“The ambassador of Drid and Acevedo wanted you to freely confess that you aided and abetted Nero that allowed him to attack as proficiently as he did to shift the blame from themselves.”

“Acevedo?! Is he here too?”

“He is dead,” Spock replied flatly. “It seems the mental conditioning that Drid is capable of causes cerebral hemorrhaging in humans. When Acevedo’s clumsy attempts to force a confession out of you six months prior was unsuccessful, it seems the ambassador grew impatient and decided to use Acevedo to influence you against his will.”

“How do you know all this?” 

“Doctor McCoy testifies that when the ambassador was still inside his mind, the doctor saw glimpses of his plans to try and break down your willpower and isolate you by implanting false memories inside your head. This information also correlated withLieutenant Uhura’s suspicions that the ambassador had killed Hamish after he overheard him and Lieutenant Commander Acevedo talking.”

“But why? Why go through all that effort? They could have gone after anyone and had a way easier time, why go through all that effort to try and get me?”

“This, I do not know, I can only speculate it involves means, motive and opportunity.”

“What?”

“There are few other individuals in Star Fleet who would have had the ability to aid and abet Nero during his attacks on Earth. Sneaking onto the Enterprise, your sudden and seemingly miraculous return to the ship after you were marooned and us splitting up once aboard his ship made you a perfect target.The ambassador and Lieutenant Commander Acevedo would not have been able to resist, or even find a more suitable scapegoat. It is also possible they underestimated your stubbornness.”

Jim looked down with a grief stricken expression, Spock was still holding his wrist. A quiet fell between them. 

“I still don’t understand why you’re here, Spock,” Jim finally said softly. “You said you don’t know what was done to me.”

“Correct.” 

Spock suddenly looked uncomfortable. 

“When you did not wake up immediately, Doctor McCoy suspected that your Sentinel abilities were compromised. He had recalled that you had informed him of the success of the meditation sessions I had assisted you with-”

Oh no, no, no. Jim suddenly did not like where this was going. 

“-And Doctor McCoy felt it would be prudent for me to contact your grandparents for more information.”

Jim pulled his wrist back.  _ No _ . His grandma wouldn’t have told them everything, would she? Except one look at Spock’s face told him she must have. 

“-And my grandma told you that I need a Guide,” Jim finished for him.

Spock inclined his head. “That is correct. She indicated that it would possibly help you fight off Drid ambassador’s influence until it has dissipated.”

Jim sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. “Did she tell you what that means?”

The long, thoughtful pause spoke volumes yet didn’t say enough. Jim itched to press Spock for more information - he was sure grandma had spilled everything, but what did it mean that Spock was here? What was going through Spock’s head right now? Was he here just to ‘repay a debt’, as Spock had put it once? Jim had a hard time looking Spock in the eye now, instead choosing to fix his eyes on a spot on the floor as he talked.

“She did. Why did you feel the need to withhold this information from me? It is not uncommon for humans who develop traits associated with high levels of extrasensory perception to need guidance to help them control their abilities. You have nothing to be ashamed about or anything to fear.”

“If she told you what I think she told you, then you know why I didn’t tell you!”

“You were concerned I would reject your request?” 

“I was concerned you’d say yes!”

Jim looked up at Spock in time to catch the hurt surprise flicker across his eyes before it disappeared. Spock stiffened his spine. “I do not follow your logic, why would my willingness to guide you be something to dread?”

Jim looked away again. He was beginning to see the aspect of the dream Spock had tried to warn him about. The walls were beginning to close in further now that he was struggling to breathe calmly, all the doors had disappeared. It was the worse thing to face, to have to deal with this and have nowhere to run. 

“I don’t know exactly how Bones phrased it, but this isn’t a one-time deal, Spock. This is forever. My grandma told me dad was my mom’s Guide and after he died she might as well have died too. I don’t know if I can…”

_ I don’t know if I can do the same thing.  _

“It frightens you.”

“Are you telling me it doesn’t frighten you?” Jim looked at Spock again, his face had softened to something more contemplative. “You’d be throwing away your future for someone you met six months ago and known for all of a few weeks! You can’t tell me that’s not insane!”

Spock said nothing, only watching him closely.

“Spock, don’t do this if you’re here because you feel that you owe me for something I’ve done or because we’re friends,” Jim pleaded. “I don’t want you to wake up one day and resent me because I took your freedom from you. I can handle this on my own.”

Maybe. But maybe grandma was right and bonding was the only way out?

Spock seemed to ponder Jim’s words for a moment, then finally held out his hand and replied with, “Jim, I am here of my own volition, I know my own mind. Let me help.”

Jim’s breath caught, his mind suddenly flying back to one of their many chess games late into the night when he had offhandedly mentioned that he had read in an old book the thought that the three most romantic words to ever be said were  _ let me help _ . 

_ “Why do you think that?” _ Spock had asked curiously. Jim had just shrugged with a shy grin.

_ “Because it shows that you want to be there for the other person when they’re the most vulnerable but still give them agency.”  _

Spock had said nothing back then and Jim had figured it would just be considered another one of humanity’s peculiarities. He didn’t think Spock would remember that and, even if he did, he didn’t think it would mean anything to the Vulcan. 

But… apparently it did.

Jim looked closely at Spock’s face and realized Spock looked just as unsure as Jim felt. Yet despite that he was still here, still offering to help. He was braver than Jim was.

“Alright, Spock,” Jim decided, taking his hand. Spock looked surprised. “Checkmate.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this fic! I hope you enjoyed it. :)


End file.
